Purani A. B. Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

1920	November December	?? ??
1923		??
	March	28
	April	09 09 11 13 18 28 30
	May	?? 29 30
	July	10 23 23
	August	08 09 15 15
	September	12 25 28
	October	10
	November	11 11 20
	December	23 27
1924	January	01 03 03 08 10 10 16 31
	February	09 09 26
	March	07 08 11 14 26
	April	04 05 08 09 24 24
	May	?? 10 17 20 31
	June	01 02 07 12 17 19 22 22 30
	July	03 04 05 08 10 15
	August	02 02 03 04 04 15 15 17
	September	12
	November	25
1925	January	05 21
	May	22
	July	12
	August	15 15 23 30
	September	15 20 21 21 26
	October	04 06 06 07 07 09 10 11 12 14 16 18 19 21 23 24
	November	02 05
	December	04 05 09 26
1926	January	12 28 30
	February	04 22
	March	02 06 12 19 23 31
	April	07 09 14
	May	04 06 18 22 29
	June	01 04 08 11 15 18 22 22 25 26 28 29
	July	02 09 10 13 30
	August	04 06 08 10 12 13 14 15 17 18 21 22 24 26 27 31
	September	03 04 06 08 09 10 19 20 26 28
	October	02 03 12
	November	06 09
1927	January	26
1938	December	10 11 12 13 14 15 18 20 21 22 23 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
1939	January	?? 01 02 03 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 10 11 12 13 14 15 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 24 24 26 27 28 29
	February	03 05 06 07 09 21 24 25 27 27
	March	12
	May	06 16 20-27
	November	19 21
	December	14 15 20 25 25 26 30
1940	January	04 05 06 07 08 10 17 18 18 19 19 27
	February	23
	March	??
	April	25
	May	12 16 20 22 23
	June	15 16 17 22 23 25 27
	July	21
	August	03 18 26
	September	04 15 17
	November	28 29
	December	14 31
1941	January	04 14 14 24
1942		?? ??
	October	12
1943	March	10 12 20 25 26 27
	April	06 08 16 17 18 19
	May	05 11
	July	19
	August	07 20
	September	26 28
	October	04
	November	20

The reader is requested to note that Sri Aurobindo is not responsible for these records as he had no opportunity to see them. So, it is not as if Sri Aurobindo said exactly these things but that I remember him to have said them. All I can say is that I have tried to be as faithful in recording them as I was humanly capable. That does not minimize my personal responsibility which I fully accept.

1. Barindra Kumar Ghose
2. Nolini Kanto Gupta
3. Bijoy Kumar Nag
4. Suresh Chakravarty – “Moni”
5. K. Amrita
6. B. P. Varma – “Satyen”
7. Tirupati
8. K. Rajangam
9. Khitish Chandra Dutt
10. A. B. Purani
11. Pavitra – P. B. St. Hilaire
12. Champaklal
13. Punamchand, and
14. Kanai

Occasional participants:
1. S. Doraiswamy Aiyar
2. Rojoni Kanta Palit
3. Anil Baran Roy
4. V. Chandra Shekhar
5. Kodanda Ram Aiyar
6. Purushottam Patel
7. Naren Das Gupta
8. Sris Goswami

1. Nirod Baran
2. Champaklal
3. Satyendra Thakore
4. Mulshanker
5. A. B. Purani
6. Becharlal

Occasional participants:
1. Dr. Manilal Parikh
2. Dr. Srinivas Rao
3. Dr. Savoor

The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita [2nd Chap.] occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: “What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?” Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment,— the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also that the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature. So, all the parts of nature — including the physical and the external — are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.

The Evening-Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo’s personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose — all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 — a span of forty years — he had led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practicing some kind of very special yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as “public”, “altruistic” or “beneficial.” Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.

But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening — from 1900 to 1910 — could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth

of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.

This period of outer retirement was one of intense Sadhana and of intellectual activity — it was also one during which he acted on external events,— though he was not dedicated outwardly to a public cause. About his own retirement he writes. But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he [Sri Aurobindo] had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in life. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his yoga is not only to realize the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world-activity into the scope of this Spiritual Consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual Force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that, besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic Power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness,— though all do not care to possess, or possessing, to use it, and this Power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which Sri Aurobindo used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards, in a constant action upon the world {{0}}forces.[[Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram]]

Twice he found it necessary to go out of his way to make public pronouncements on important world-issues, which shows distinctly that renunciation of life is not a part of his yoga. “The first was in relation to the second world-war. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to {{0}}intervene.”[[Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram]]

The second was with regard to Sir Stafford Cripps’ proposal for the transfer of power to India.

Over and above Sadhana, writing-work and rendering spiritual help to the world during his apparent retirement there were plenty of other activities of which the outside world has no knowledge. Many prominent as well as less known persons sought and obtained interviews with him during these years. Thus, among the well-known persons may be mentioned C. R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, Sarala Devi, Dr. Munje, Khasirao Jadhava, Tagore Sylvain Levy. The great national poet of Tamilnad, S. Subramanya Bharati, was in contact with Sri Aurobindo for some years during his stay at Pondicherry; so was V. V. S. Aiyar. The famous V. Ramaswamy Aiyangar — Va. Ra. of Tamil literature — stayed with Sri Aurobindo for nearly three years and was influenced by him. Some of these facts have been already mentioned in “A Life of Sri Aurobindo.”

Jung has admitted that there is an element of mystery, something that baffles the reason, in human personality. One finds that the greater the personality the greater is the complexity. And this is especially so with regard to spiritual personalities, what the Gita calls “Vibhutis” and “Avatars.”

Sri Aurobindo has explained the mystery of personality in some of his writings. Ordinarily by a personality we mean something which can be described as “a pattern of being

marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character.” In one view personality is regarded as a fixed structure of recognizable qualities expressing a power of being; another idea regards “personality as a flux of self-expressive or sensitive and responsive being.” “But flux of nature and fixity of nature — which some call character — are two aspects of being, neither of which, nor indeed both together, can be a definition of personality.” Besides this flux and this fixity there is also a third and occult element, the Person behind of whom the personality is a self-expression; the Person puts forward the personality as his role, character, persona, in the present act of his long drama of manifested existence. But the Person is larger than his personality, and it may happen that this inner largeness overflows into the surface formation; the result is a self-expression of being which can no longer be described by fixed qualities, normalities of mood, exact lineaments, or marked out structural {{0}}limits.[[The Life Divine, P. 833]]

The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual sadhana, he has shown us that practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a “divine” status. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.

The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of over coming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti,— the embodiment of a divine quality or power,— and the Avatar — the divine incarnation — are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.

In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says about the Avatar: “He may on the other hand descend as an incarnation of divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama and Krishna; but always then his descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner and Spiritual {{0}}rebirth.”[[Essays on the Gita, P. 258]]

“He comes as the divine power and love which calls men to itself, so that they may take refuge in that and no longer in the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their human fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all the unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the {{0}}Divine.”[[Essays on the Gita, p. 258]]

“The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in men above their lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine loves. He comes as a divine personality, which shall fill the consciousness of the human being, to replace the limited

egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into {{0}}immortality,”[[Essays on the Gita, p. 258]]

It is clear that Sri Aurobindo interpreted the traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of the evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the “gnostic individual” in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: “A Supramental gnostic individual will be a Spiritual Person, but not a personality, in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the Universal and the Transcendent.” Describing the gnostic individual he says: “we feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of Personality the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognizable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul a {{0}}Purusha.”[[The Life Divine, p. 883]]

One feels that he was describing the feeling of some of us — his disciples — with regard to him in his inimitable way.

This transformation of the human personality into the Divine — perhaps even the mere connection of the human with the Divine — is probably regarded as a chimera by the modern mind. To the modern mind it would appear as the apotheosis of a human personality which is against its idea of equality of men. Its difficulty is partly due to the notion that the Divine is unlimited and illimitable while a “personality”, however high and grand, seems to demand imposition, or assumption, of limitation. In this connection Sri Aurobindo said during an Evening Talk:

“No human manifestation can be illimitable and unlimited but the manifestation in the limited should reflect the unlimited, the Transcendent Beyond.” [28.04.1923]

This possibility of the human touching and manifesting the Divine has been realized during the course of human history whenever a great spiritual Light has appeared on earth. One of the purposes of this book is to show how Sri Aurobindo himself reflected the unlimited Beyond in his own self.

Greatness is magnetic and in a sense contagious. Whenever manifested, greatness is claimed by humanity as something that reveals the possibility of the race. The highest quality of greatness is not merely to attract us but to inspire us to follow it and rise to our own highest spiritual stature. To the majority of men Truth remains abstract, impersonal and far unless it is seen and felt concretely in a human personality. A man never knows a truth actively except through a person and by embodying it in his personality. Some glimpse of the Truth-Consciousness which Sri Aurobindo embodied may be caught in these Evening Talks.

Guru griha vasa — “staying in the home of the Guru” — is a very old Indian ideal maintained by seekers through the ages. The Aranyakas — “the ancient teachings in the forest groves” — are perhaps the oldest records of the institution. It was not for “education” in the modern sense of the term that men went to live with the Guru; for the Guru is not a “teacher”. The Guru is one who is “enlightened,” who is a seer, a Rishi, one who has the vision of and has lived the Truth. He has, thus, the knowledge of the goal of human life and has learnt true values in life by living the truth. He can impart both these to the willing seeker. In ancient times seekers went to the Guru with many questions,

difficulties and doubts but also with earnestness. Their questions were preliminary to the quest.

The Master the Guru, set at rest the puzzled human mind by his illuminating answers, perhaps even more by his silent consciousness, so that it might be able to pursue unhampered the path of realization of the Truth. Those ancient discourses answer the mind of man today even across the ages. They have rightly acquired — as everything of the past does — a certain sanctity. But sometimes that very reverence prevents men from properly evaluating, and living in, the present. This happens when the mind instead of seeking the Spirit looks at the form. For instance, it is not necessary for such discourses that they take place in forest groves in order to be highly spiritual. Wherever the Master is, there is Light And Gura griha — the house of the Master — can be his private dwelling place. So much was this feeling a part of Sri Aurobindo’s nature and so particular was he to maintain the personal character of his work that during the first few years — after 1923 — he did not like his house to be called an “Ashram”, as the word had acquired the sense of a public institution to the modern mind. But there was no doubt that the flower of Divinity had blossomed in him; and disciples, likes bees seeking honey, came to him. It is no exaggeration to say that these Evening-Talks were to the small company of disciples what the Aranyakas were to the ancient seekers. Seeking the Light, they came to the dwelling place of their Guru, the greatest seer of the age, and found it their spiritual home — the home of their parents, for, the Mother, his companion in the great mission, had come. And these spiritual parents bestowed upon the disciples freely of their Light, their consciousness, their power and their grace. The modern reader may find that the form of these discourses differs from those of the past but it was bound to be so for the simple reason that the times have changed and

the problems that puzzle the modern mind are so different. Even though the disciples may be very imperfect representations of what he aimed at in them, still they are his creations. It is in order to repay, in however infinitesimal a degree, the debt which we owe to him that the effort is made to partake of the joy of his company — the Evening-Talks — with a larger public.

Sri Aurobindo was never a social man in the current sense of the term and definitely he was not a man of the crowd. This was due to his grave temperament, not to any feeling of superiority or to repulsion for men. At Baroda there was an Officer’s Club which was patronized by the Maharajah and though Sri Aurobindo enrolled himself as a member he hardly went to the Club even on special occasions. He rather liked a small congenial circle of friends and spent most of his evenings with them whenever he was free and not occupied with his studies of other works. After Baroda when he went to Calcutta there was hardly any time in the storm and stress of revolutionary politics to permit him to lead a “social life.” What little time he could spare from his incessant activities was spent in the house of Raja Subodh Malick or at the Grey Street house. In the Karmayogin office he used to sit after the office hours till late chatting with a few persons or trying automatic writing. Strange dictations used to be received sometimes: one of them was the following: “Moni [Suresh Chakarvarty] will bomb Sir Edward Grey when he will come as the Viceroy of India.” In later years at Pondicherry there used to be a joke that Sir Edward took such a fright at the prospect of Moni’s bombing him that he never came to India!

After Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry from Chandranagore he entered upon an intense period of spiritual sadhana and for a few months he refused to receive anyone. After a time he used to sit down to talk in the evening and on some days tried automatic writing. Yogic Sadhana — a small book — was the result. In 1913 Sri Aurobindo removed to Rue Francois Martin No. 41 where he used to receive persons at fixed times. This was generally in the morning between 9 and 10. 30.

But, over and above newcomers, some local people and the few inmates of the house used to have informal talk with Sri Aurobindo in the evening. In the beginning the inmates used to go out for playing football, and during their absence known local individuals would come in and wait for Sri Aurobindo. Afterwards regular meditation began at about 4. p. m. in which practically all the inmates participated. After the meditation all of the members and those who were permitted shared in the evening sitting. This was a very informal gathering depending entirely upon Sri Aurobindo’s leisure.

When Sri Aurobindo and the Mother removed to No. 9 Rue de la Marine in 1922 the same routine of informal evening sittings after meditation continued. I came to Pondicherry for Sadhana in the beginning of 1923. I kept notes of the important talks I had with the four or five disciples who were already there. Besides, I used to take detailed notes of the evening-talks which we all had with the Master. They were not intended by him to be noted down. I took them down because of the importance I felt about everything connected with him, no matter how insignificant to the outer view. I also felt that everything he did would acquire for those who would come to know his mission a very great significance.

As years passed the evening sittings went on changing their time and often those disciples who came from outside

for a temporary stay for Sadhana were allowed to join them. And, as the number of Sadhaks practicing the yoga increased, the evening sittings also became more full, the small verandah upstairs in the main building was found insufficient. Members of the household would gather every day at the fixed time with some sense of expectancy and start chatting in low tones. Sri Aurobindo used to come last and it was after his coming that the session would really commence.

He came dressed as usual in Dhoti, part of which was used by him to cover the upper part of his body. Very rarely he came out with Chaddar or Shawl and then it was “in deference to the climate” as he sometimes put it. At times for minutes he would be gazing at the sky from a small opening at the top of the grass-curtains that covered the verandah of the upstairs in No. 9 Rue de la Marine. How much were these sittings dependent on him may be gathered from the fact that there were days when more than three-fourths of the time passed in complete silence without any outer suggestion from him, or there was only an abrupt “Yes” or “No” to all attempts at drawing him out in conversation. And even when he participated in the talk one always felt that his voice was that of one who does not let his whole being flow into his words; there was a reserve and what was left unsaid was perhaps more than what was spoken. What was spoken was what he felt necessary to speak.

Very often some news-item in the daily newspaper, town-gossip, or some interesting letter received either by him or by a disciple, or a question from one of the gathering, occasionally some remark or query from himself would set the ball rolling for the talk. The whole thing was so informal that one could never predict the turn the conversation would take. The whole house therefore was in a mood to enjoy the freshness and the delight of meeting the unexpected.

There were peals of laughter and light talk, jokes and criticism which might be called personal,—there was seriousness and earnestness in abundance.

These sittings, in fact, furnished Sri Aurobindo with an occasion to admit and feel the outer atmosphere and that of the group living with him. It brought to him the much — needed direct contact of the mental and vital make-up of the disciples, enabling him to act on the atmosphere in general and to the individual in particular. He could thus help to remould their mental make-up by removing the limitations of their minds and opinions, and correct temperamental tendencies and formations. Thus, these sittings contributed at least partly to the creation of an atmosphere amenable to the working of the Higher Consciousness. Far more important than the actual talk and its content was the personal contact, the influence of the Master, and the divine atmosphere he emanated; for through his outer personality it was the Divine Consciousness that he allowed to act. All along behind the outer manifestation that appeared human, there was the influence and presence of the Divine.

What was talked in the small group informally was not intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result of some talks very often was to point out to the disciple the inherent incapacity of the human intellect and its secondary place in the search for the ultimate Reality.

But there were occasions when he did give his independently personal views on some problems, on events and other subjects. Even then it was never an authoritarian pronouncement. Most often it appeared to be a logically worked out and almost inevitable conclusion expressed quite impersonally though with firm and sincere conviction. This impersonality was such a prominent trait of his personality! Even in such matters as dispatching a letter or a telegram it would not be a command from him to a disciple to carry out the task. Most often during his usual passage to the dining room he would stop on the way, drop in on the company of four or five disciples and, holding out the letter or the telegram, would say in the most amiable and yet the most impersonal way: “I suppose this has to be sent.” And it would be for some one in the group instantly to volunteer and take it. The expression very often he used was “It was done”, “It happened” not “I did.”

There were two places where these sittings took place. At the third place there was no sitting but informal talk to a small number of disciples who were attending him after the accident in November 1938.

From 1918 to 1922 we gathered at No: 41 Rue Francois Martin, called the Guest House, upstairs, on a broad verandah into which four rooms opened and whose main piece of furniture was a small table 3’ x 1.5’, covered with a blue cotton cloth. That is where Sri Aurobindo used to sit in a hard wooden chair behind the table with a few chairs in front for the visitors or for the disciples.

From 1922 to 1926 No. 9 Rue de la Marine, where he and the Mother had shifted, was the place where the sittings were held. There, also upstairs, was a less broad verandah than at the Guest House, a little bigger table in front of the central door out of three, and a broad Japanese chair — the table covered with a better cloth than the one in the Guest House, a small flower vase, an ash — tray, a block calendar indicating the date and an ordinary time-piece, a number of chairs in front in a line. The evening sittings

used to be after meditation at 4 or 4:30 p.m. After November 24, 1926, the sitting began to get later and later, till the limit of 1 o’clock at night was reached. Then the curtain fell. Sri Aurobindo retired completely after December 1926 and the evening sittings came to a close.

Then, on November 23, 1938 I got up at 2 o’clock to prepare hot water for the Mother’s early bath because the 24th was Darshan day. Between 2.20 and 2.30 the Mother rang the bell. I ran up the staircase to be told about an accident that had happened to Sri Aurobindo’s foot and to be asked to fetch the doctor. This accident brought about a change in his complete retirement, and rendered him available to those who had to attend on him. This opened out a long period of 12 years during which his retirement was modified owing to circumstances, inner and outer, that made it possible for him to have direct physical contacts with the world outside.

The long period of the second world war with all its vicissitudes passed through these years. It was a priceless experience to see how he devoted his energies to the task of saving humanity from the threatened reign of Nazism. It was a practical lesson of solid work done for humanity without any thought of return or reward, without even letting humanity know what he was doing for it! Thus he lived the Divine and showed us how the Divine cares for the world, how he comes down and works for man. I shall never forget how he who was at one time — in his own words — “not merely a non-co-operator but an enemy of British Imperialism” bestowed such anxious care on the health of Churchill, listening carefully to the health bulletins!

There were no formal evening sittings during these years but what appeared to me important in the talks was recorded and has been incorporated in this book.

I went out from Pondicherry in 1947 when India was on the eve of securing her partitioned freedom. On my return-journey in the month of July 1947, I became conscious of the fact that it was my return to a place where I had passed nearly twenty-five years at a stretch. The memory of my first visit in 1918 awoke in me all the old impressions vividly. I saw then that even at that early period Sri Aurobindo had been for me the embodiment of the Supreme Consciousness. I began to search mentally for the exact time-moment when I had come to know him. Travelling far into the past I found it was in 1914 when I read a notice in the Bombay Chronicle about the publication of a monthly magazine — the Arya — from Pondicherry by Sri Aurobindo. I hastened to register my name in advance. In those days of political storms, to avoid the suspicion of the college authorities and the police, I had ordered the magazine to be delivered to an address outside the college. Sri Aurobindo then appeared to me to be the personification of the ideal of the life divine which he so ably put before humanity in the Arya.

But the question: “why did I order the Arya?” remained.

On trying to find an answer I found that I had known him before the appearance of the Arya.

The Congress broke up at Surat in 1907. Sri Aurobindo had played a prominent part in that historical session. From Surat he came to Baroda, and at Vankaner Theatre and at Prof, Manik Rao’s old gymnasium in Dandia Bazar he delivered several speeches which not only took the audience by storm but changed entirely the course of many lives. I also heard him without understanding everything that was spoken. But ever since I had seen him I had got the constant feeling that he was one known to me, and so my mind could not fix the exact time moment when I knew him. It is certain that the connection seemed to begin with the great tidal wave of the national movement in the political life of India; but I think it was only the apparent beginning. The years between 1903 to 1910 were those of unprecedented awakening and revolution. The generations that followed also witnessed two or three powerful floods of the national movement. But the very first onrush of the newly awakened national consciousness of India was unique. That tidal wave in its initial onrush defined the goal of India’s political ideal — an independent republic. Alternating movement of ebb and flow in the national movement followed till in 1947 the goal was reached. The lives of leaders and workers, who rode, willingly and with delight on the dangerous crest of the tidal wave, underwent great transformations. Our small group in Gujarat got its goal fixed — the winning of undiluted freedom for India.

All the energies of the leaders were taken up by the freedom movement. Only a few among them attempted to see beyond the horizon of political freedom some ideal of human perfection; for, after all, freedom is not the ultimate goal but a condition for the expression of the cultural Spirit of India. In Swami Shraddhananda, Pandit Madanmohan Malavia, Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi — to name

some leaders — we see the double aspect of the inspiration. Among all the visions of perfection of the human Spirit on earth, I found the synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo the most rational and the most satisfying. It meets the need of the individual and collective life of man today. It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture. It is, as Dr. S. K. Maitra says, the message which holds out hope in a world of despair.

This aspect of Sri Aurobindo’s vision attracted me as much as the natural affinity which I had felt on seeing him. I found on making a serious study of the Arya that it led me to very rational conclusions with regard to the solutions of the deepest problems of life. I opened correspondence with him and in 1916, with his permission, began to translate the Arya into Gujarat.

But, though I had seen him from a distance and felt an unaccountable familiarity with him, still I had not yet met him personally. When the question of putting into execution the revolutionary plan, which Sri Aurobindo had given to my brother — the late C. B. Purani — at Baroda in 1907, arose I thought it better to obtain Sri Aurobindo’s consent to it. Barindra, his brother, had given the formula for preparing bombs to my brother, and I was also very impatient to begin the work. But still we thought it necessary to consult the great leader who had given us the inspiration, as the lives of many young men were involved in the plan.

I had an introduction to Sj. V. V. S. Aiyar who was then staying at Pondicherry. It was in December 1918 that I reached Pondicherry. I did not stay long with Mr. Aiyar. I took up my bundle of books — mainly the Arya — and went to No. 41 Rue Francois Martin, the Arya office, which was also Sri Aurobindo’s residence. The house looked a little queer,— on the right side as one entered were a few plantain trees and by their side a heap of broken tiles. On the left at the edge of the open courtyard four doors

giving entrance to four rooms were seen. The verandah outside was wide. It was about 8 in the morning. The time for meeting Sri Aurobindo was fixed at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I waited all the time in the house, occasionally chatting with the two inmates who were there.

Sri Aurobindo was sitting in a wooden chair behind a small table covered with an indigo-blue cloth in the verandah upstairs when I went up to meet him. I felt a spiritual light surrounding his face. His look was penetrating. He had known me by my correspondence. I reminded him about my brother having met him at Baroda; he had not forgotten him. Then I informed him that our group was now ready to start revolutionary activity. It had taken us about eleven years to get organised.

Sri Aurobindo remained silent for some time. Then he put me questions about my Sadhana — spiritual practice. I described my efforts and added: “Sadhana is all right, but it is difficult to concentrate on it so long as India is not free.”

“Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activity to free India,” he said.

“But without that how is the British Government to go from India?” I asked him.

“That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, why should you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on yoga — the spiritual practice,” he replied.

“But India is a land that has Sadhana in its blood. When India is free, I believe, thousands will devote themselves to yoga. But in the world of today who will listen to the truth from, or spirituality of, slaves?” I asked him.

He replied: “India has already decided to win freedom and so there will certainly be found leaders and men to work

for that goal. But all are not called to yoga. So, when you have the call, is it not better to concentrate upon it? If you want to carry out the revolutionary programme you are free to do it, but I cannot give my consent to it.”

“But it was you who gave us the inspiration and the start for revolutionary activity. Why do you now refuse to give your consent to its execution?” I asked.

“Because I have done the work and I know its difficulties. Young men come forward to join the movement, driven by idealism and enthusiasm. But these elements do not last long. It becomes very difficult to observe and extract discipline. Small groups begin to form within the organisation, rivalries grow between groups and even between individuals. There is competition for leadership. The agents of the Government generally manage to join these organisations from the very beginning. And so the organisations are unable to act effectively. Sometimes they sink so low as to quarrel even for money,” he said calmly.

“But even supposing that I grant Sadhana to be of greater importance, and even intellectually understand that I should concentrate upon it. — my difficulty is that I feel intensely that I must do something for the freedom of India. I have been unable to sleep soundly for the last two years and a half. I can remain quiet if I make a very strong effort. But the concentration of my whole being turns towards India’s freedom. It is difficult for me to sleep till that is secured”.

Sri Aurobindo remained silent for two or three minutes. It was a long pause. Then he said: “Suppose an assurance is given to you that India will be free?”

“Who can give such an assurance?” I could feel the echo of doubt and challenge in my own question.

Again he remained silent for three or four minutes. Then he looked at me and added: “Suppose I give you the assurance?”

I paused for a moment, considered the question with myself and said: “If you give the assurance, I can accept it.”

“Then I give you the assurance that India will be free,” he said in a serious tone.

My work was over — the purpose of my visit to Pondicherry was served. My personal question and the problem of our group was solved! I then conveyed to him the message of Sj. K. G. Deshpande from Baroda. I told him that financial help could be arranged from Baroda, if necessary, to which he replied, “At present what is required comes from Bengal, especially from Chandernagore. So there is no need.”

When the talk turned to Prof. D. L. Purohit of Baroda Sri Aurobindo recounted the incident of his visit to Pondicherry where he had come to inquire into the relation between the Church and the State. He had paid a courtesy call on Sri Aurobindo as he had known him at Baroda. This had resulted in his resignation from Baroda State service on account of the pressure of the British Residency. I conveyed to Sri Aurobindo the good news that after his resignation Mr. Purohit had started practice as a lawyer and had been quite successful, earning more than the pay he had been getting as a professor.

It was time for me to leave. The question of Indian freedom again arose in my mind, and at the time of taking leave, after I had got up to depart, I could not repress the question — it was a question of very life for me: “Are you quite sure that India will be free?”

1 did not, at that time, realise the full import of my query. I wanted a guarantee, and though the assurance had been given my doubts had not completely disappeared.

Sri Aurobindo became very serious. The yogi in him came forward, his gaze was fixed at the sky that could be seen beyond the window. Then he looked at me and putting his fist on the table he said:

“You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising, of the sun tomorrow. The decree has already gone forth it may not be long in coming.”

I bowed down to him. That day I was able to sleep soundly in the train after more than two years. And in my mind was fixed for ever the picture of that scene: two of us standing near the small table, my earnest question, that upward gaze, and that quiet and firm voice with power in it to shake the world, that firm fist planted on the table,— the symbol of self-confidence of the divine Truth. There may be rank Kaliyuga, the Iron Age, in the whole world but it is the great good fortune of India that she has sons who know the Truth and have the unshakable faith in it, and can risk their lives for its sake. In this significant fact is contained the divine destiny of India and of the world.

After meeting Sri Aurobindo I was quite relieved of the great strain that was upon me. Now that I felt Indian freedom to be a certainty, I could participate in public movements with equanimity and with a truer spiritual attitude. I got some experiences also which confirmed my faith in Sri Aurobindo’s path. I got the confident faith in a divine Power that is beyond time and space and that can and does work in the world. I came to know that any man with a sincere aspiration for it can come in contact with that Power.

There were people who thought that Sri Aurobindo had retired from life, that he did not take any interest in the world and its affairs. These ideas never troubled me. On the contrary, 1 felt that his work was of tremendous significance for humanity and its future. In fact, the dynamic aspect of his spirituality, his insistence on life as a field for the manifestation of the Spirit, and his great synthesis added to the attraction I had already felt. To me he appeared

as the spiritual Sun in modern times shedding his light on mankind from the height of his consciousness, and Pondicherry where he lived was a place of pilgrimage.

The second time I met Sri Aurobindo was in 1921, when there was a greater familiarity. Having come for a short stay, I remained eleven days on Sri Aurobindo’s asking me to prolong my stay. During my journey from Madras to Pondicherry I was enchanted by the natural scenery — the vast stretches of green paddy fields. But Pondicherry as a city was lethargic, with a colonial atmosphere — an exhibition of the worst elements of European and Indian culture. The market was dirty and stinking and the people had no idea of sanitation. The sea-beach was made filthy by them. Smuggling was the main business.

But the greatest surprise of my visit in 1921 was the “darshan” of Sri Aurobindo. During the interval of two years his body had undergone a transformation which could only be described as miraculous. In 1918 the colour of the body was like that of an ordinary Bengali — rather dark — though there was a lustre on the face and the gaze was penetrating. On going upstairs to see him (in the same house) I found his cheeks wore an apple-pink colour and the whole body glowed with a soft creamy white light. So great and unexpected was the change that I could not help exclaiming:

Instead of giving a direct reply he parried the question, as I had grown a beard: “And what has happened to you?”

But afterwards in the course of talk he explained to me that when the Higher Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the vital and

even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. He asked me to join the meditation in the afternoon and also the evening sittings.

This time I saw the Mother for the first time. She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo was going upstairs after lunch. Such unearthly beauty I had never seen — she appeared to be about 20 whereas she was more than 37 years old.

I found the atmosphere of the Ashram tense. The Mother and Datta, i.e. Miss Hodgson, had come to stay in No. 41 Rue Francois Martin. The house had undergone a great change. There was a clean garden in the open courtyard, every room had simple and decent furniture,— a mat, a chair and a small table. There was an air of tidiness and order. This was, no doubt, the effect of Mother’s presence. But yet the atmosphere was tense because Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were engaged in fighting with forces of the vital plane.

Only a few days before my arrival a dismissed cook had managed to get stones hurled into Sri Aurobindo’s house through the agency of a Mohammedan occultist. This was the topic of excited talk when I was at Pondicherry. Upendranath Banerjee, who hardly believed in the possibility of such occult phenomena, had gone to the terrace with a lantern and a lathi to find the culprit. I heard the whole story from Upen himself. The stone-falling ended when the Mother took the matter in hand and removed the servant-boy, who was the medium, to another {{0}}house.[[The account of this is already given in the Life of Sri Aurobindo by Purani.]]

The Prabartak Sangh was started at Chandernagore by Motilal Roy and others under the inspiration

of Sri Aurobindo. In the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo life is accepted as the field for the manifestation of the Divine. Its main aim is not liberation merely but the manifestation of divine perfection. In his vision not only the individual but the collectivity also is a term of the Divine. Acceptance of life includes the collective life.

There is a deeper reason for accepting life. In his vision of the Reality Sri Aurobindo shows the rationality and the inevitability of an ascent by man to a higher consciousness than Mind. This ascent to the Higher Consciousness must lead to its descent in man. If the new element, the Supermind, is to become a permanent part of the earth-consciousness, then not only should it descent into the lowest plane of physical consciousness — the subconscient — but it must become a part of the collective consciousness on earth.

I asked him many questions about the organisation of a collective life based on spiritual aspiration.

On the last day of my stay of eleven days I met Sri Aurobindo between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. The main topic was Sadhana.

When I got up to take leave I asked him: “What are you waiting for?” I put the question because it was clear to me that he had been constantly living in the Higher Consciousness. “It is true,” he said, “that the Divine Consciousness has descended but it has not yet descended into the physical being. So long as that is not done the work cannot be said to be accomplished.”

I bowed down to him. When I got up to look at his face, I found he had already gone to the entrance of his room and, through the one door, I saw him turning his face towards me with a smile. I felt a great elation when I boarded the train: for, here was a guide who had already attained the Divine Consciousness, was conscious about it

and yet whose detachment and discrimination were so perfect, whose sincerity so profound, that he knew what had still to be attained and could go on unobtrussively doing his hard work for mankind. External forms had a secondary place in his scale of values. In an effort so great is embodied some divine inspiration; to be called to such an ideal was itself the greatest good fortune.

The freedom of India, about which he had assured me, came, and I was fortunate to live to see it arrive on his own auspicious birthday, the 15th of August 1947. I had been out and now it was to Pondicherry that I was returning.

I had lived there for nearly a generation but had never felt the Pondicherry Ashram as something fixed and unchanging. I realised this most strongly on the day I was returning to it. Pondicherry has always been to me the symbol of a great experiment, of a divine ideal. It is marching every hour towards the ultimate goal of man’s upward ascent to the Divine. Not a city but a spiritual laboratory, a collective being with a daily changing horizon yet pursuing a fixed distant objective, a place fixed to the outer view but constantly moving — Pondicherry to me is always like the Arab’s tent.

Disciple: Who would be admitted into the commune and what would be the method of selection?

Sri Aurobindo: Those who have taken to Sadhana; they are already united though unconsciously.

Disciple: Would it be necessary for members to have some intellectual work in the commune?

Sri Aurobindo: There must be three to four hours’ intellectual work everyday. The members must be able to follow what the Yoga is and its processes.

Sri Aurobindo: Personal demand must not remain; everything would be intended for all. But before one joins it one must make sure of his spiritual aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo: No. It will have to produce more things because all its needs cannot be supplied by itself. It will have, therefore to keep connection with the capitalist world. Agriculture is the mainstay. The community must try to stand on its own feet for food.

Sarala Devi came to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo. It was evident she wanted to ascertain his future programme and his views on current politics. She met him for two days. As she came up to meet him at the fixed time, 4-30 p. m. Sri Aurobindo got up from his chair to greet her. Both greeted each other with folded hands. After formal exchanges Sarala Devi began

Sri Aurobindo: I am not against it; the train has arrived, it must be allowed to run its own course. The only thing I feel is that there is great need of solidifying the national will for freedom into stern action.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it has. but I am afraid it is done without proper ammunition, and mobilisation and organisation of the available forces.

Sri Aurobindo: I must first prepare the rails and lay them down, then only can I get the train to arrive.

Sri Aurobindo: As for myself, I have a personal programme. But if I was in politics, even then I would have taken another stand. I would first be sure of ray ground before I fought the government.

Sarala Devi: Don’t you think that sufficient work has been done in the country to start the fight?

Sri Aurobindo: Until now only waves of emotion and a certain all round awakening have come. But the force which could stand the strain when the government would put forth its force in full vigour is still not there.

What is needed is more organisation of the national will. It is no use emotional waves rising and spreading, then going down. Our leaders need not go on lecturing. What we should do is to organise local committees of action throughout the country to carry out any mandate of the central organisation. These local leaders must stay among the people.

Sarala Devi: But I find many people ridicule non-cooperation. Rabi Babu [Rabindranath Tagore] is choked by it. What is your frank personal opinion?

Sri Aurobindo: We have qualified sympathy with the movement; sympathy is there because we have the same objective; it is qualified because we feel that the basis is not sound. The Punjab martial-law and atrocities, the Khilafat are there, and non-cooperation is based on those wrongs. The students from Madras came here the other day and told me they wanted to non-cooperate because the government was unjust. Asked whether they would put up with a just British government they could not reply.

India must want freedom because of herself, because of her own Spirit. I would very much like India to find her own Swaraj and then, like Ireland, to work out her salvation even with violence — preferably without violence. Our basis must be broader than that of mere opposition to the British government. All the time our eyes are turned to the British and their actions. We must look to ourselves irrespectively of them and having found our own nationhood make it free.

A visitor from Madras to Pondicherry came in connection with non-cooperation work and met Sri Aurobindo.

Question: Dr. Bhagwandas and some others are trying to spiritualise politics — particularly the western institutions in our politics, and there is the village organisation work also. What is your opinion in this matter?

Sri Aurobindo: These are two things which must be kept apart. There are first those who want to work for political

freedom and they fix that as their final goal. Secondly, there are those who want to organise the future life of the community in India.

These two require different kinds of organisations and they must be allowed to work with the utmost rapidity. It goes without saying that without organisation there can be no success in any work. But the political worker’s path is straight. He need not go in for constructive work. He has to organise in the village something like the Peasant organisations and associations in Ireland. When they are sufficiently well-organised then they can throw their weight into politics. The second path is much harder and longer and the worker’s method also will be different. If he succeeds he is one of those who win the highest victory.

Of late, in some quarters, too much weight is being put upon village-work. I know in India it is a very very important work to do. But I do not like people trying to picture future India as a mass of villages only. The village has a lot of life-problems and the villagers must be rescued from their living death. But they cannot be leaders of thought.

Question:Don’t you think that some kind of political organisation and work is necessary in the villages and that the village also can be a centre of culture and creative activity?

Sri Aurobindo: Organisation and work in villages are certainly necessary, but I doubt very much whether the village could be a creative centre. At least in the past it was not, so far as we can see. In the past there were village communities but they do not seem to have been creative. The reason is that the man in the village has his view of life bound up with a small portion of land and things so that he cannot easily breathe that liberal and free air which is necessary for great creation. That is why leaders always came from the cities even in ancient times.

I do no think that the villages in India, or anywhere in the world, are able to rule even in democracy. For creation a certain leisure and mental development are wanted.

Question:Do you think that in Russia what they have attempted is real democracy?

Sri Aurobindo: In Europe they have always tried for democracy. Real democracy has always failed, and failed because it is against human nature. There are certain men who are bound to govern. One must be prepared to face facts. Even in the democracies those men manage to rule and one knows too well the villagers do not. Only, those people govern in their name, and it sometimes makes them more free and reckless. In Russia — one does not know the exact situation — the attempt was for creating real rule of the people, i.e. of the village. You see in what it has ended? It has established again an oligarchy of the Lenin-party. One may even ask: What has Russia created? It has tried to destroy capital and thus tried to destroy and perhaps succeeded in destroying city life. It is trying mechanically to equalise men. But it is not a success. The Western social life rests on interests and rights. It depends upon the vitalistic existence of men which is largely governed by his rational mind helped by scientific inventions. Reason gives man the rigid methods of classification and mental construction and theory to justify his interests and rights, and science gives him the required efficiency, force and power. Thus he is sure of his goal. But one may say that, though organised and effective, European life is not organic. The view that it takes of man is a very imperfect view, and the ideal it sets before man an incomplete ideal. That is why you find there class-war and struggle for rights governed by the rational intellect. Europeanal life is very powerful because it can put the whole force of its life at once

in operation by a coordination of all its members. In old times the ideal was different. They — the ancients — based their society on the structure of religion. I do not mean narrow religion but the highest law of our being. The whole social fabric was built up to fulfil that purpose. There was no talk in those days of individual liberty in the present sense of the term. But there was absolute communal liberty. Every community was completely free to develop its own religion,— the law of its being. Even the selection of the line was a matter of free choice for the individual.

I do not believe that because a man is governed by another man, or one class by another class, there is always oppression: for instance, the Brahmins never ruled but they were never oppressed by others rather they oppressed other people. The government becomes useless and bad when one class or one nation keeps another down and governs it for its own benefit and does not allow the class or nation to follow its own Dharma,— the law of its being.

In ancient times each community had its own Dharma and within itself it was independent. Every village, every city had its own organisation quite free from all political control and within that every individual was free — free to change and take up another line for his development. But all this was not put into a definite political unit. There were, of course attempts at that kind of expression of life but they were only partially successful. The whole community in India was a very big one and the community — culture based on Dharma was not thrown into a kind of organisation which would resist external aggression; and ultimately we were brought to the present stage.

Now the problem is how to organise the future life of the country. I myself am a communist in a certain sense

but I cannot agree with the Russian method. One may ask: after all what has Russia created? Even among our present workers in India there is a lack of that definite idea as to what they are about and what kind of thing they want. That is the reason why men like Dr. Bhagwandas propose some mental constructions like asking men to go in for politics after 50 years age and so on. That does not seem to me to be the correct method, and I believe whoever pursues it will encounter complete failure.

Sri Aurobindo: This is a very difficult path and therefore demands complete surrender and one-pointed concentration. One must be after the Truth alone. One has to be prepared to leave ideals of altruism, patriotism and even the aspiration for personal liberation and follow the Yoga for the sake of the Divine alone. Aspiration must be firm but it must not be only an intellectual aspiration, it must be of the inmost soul. It, then, means a call from Above. One has to take an irrevocable decision before he begins the Yoga. Such a decision may take time to arrive but it is better to wait till then.

Sri Aurobindo: There are so many difficulties in this path — this Yoga is not meant for all. At one time I had the idea that this yoga is for humanity, but now the idea is changed. This Yoga is for the Divine, for God. Man has first to attain the Truth-Consciousness and leave the salvation of mankind to that consciousness. This does not mean that one has to abandon Life in this Yoga. My mission in life is to bring down the Supermind into Mind, Life and Body. Formerly I did not care if the sadhaka accepted other influences, but now I have decided to take only those who will admit the influence of this Yoga exclusively.

Disciple: What should be the Sadhaka’s attitude with regard to physical illness?

Sri Aurobindo: He must first of all remain completely detached in the vital being and in the mind. The illness is the result of the working of the forces of Nature. He must use his will to reject the illness and one’s will must be used as a representative of the Divine Will. When the Divine Will descends into the Adhara then it works no longer indirectly through the Sadhak’s will but directly and removes the illness. When the psychic being awakens then it is able to perceive the influence of the disease even before it enters the body. Not only does one perceive it, but one knows which organ is going to be attacked and one can keep off the attack with the help of the Higher Power.

Sri Aurobindo generally used to see his disciples and visitors from outside, who came with the express purpose of seeing him, between 9 and 11 in the morning. He used to glance at the daily paper — The Hindu — and then grant interviews. These were very informal and often intimate in the sense that the disciple would relate his experiences

and difficulties, and visitors from outside generally sought his advice on spiritual matters or individual guidance in some public activity. One such interview is given here to illustrate how he dealt with the questions of Sadhana,— spiritual practice.

Disciple: I have, at present a very strong impulse to realise the infinite Transcendent Shakti. I want to know whether it is safer to leave the Sadhana to the Universal or to the Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: The Transcendent and the Universal Powers are not always exclusive of each other; they are almost mutual: when the Transcendent is realised in Mind it is the Universal. One has to have that realisation also.

Sri Aurobindo: The Universal is full of all sorts of things,— true as well as false, good as well as bad, both divine and undivine. One has to get the knowledge and distinguish between them. It is not safe to open oneself to the Universal before one has the power of discrimination, because all kinds of ideas, forces, impulses, even Rakshasic and Paishachic rush into him. There are schools of Yoga that consider this conditions as “freedom” or Mukti and they also take pleasure in the Universal manifestation, as they call it. But that is not perfection. Perfection only comes when the Transcendental Power manifests itself in human life, when the Infinite manifests itself in the finite.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally, these are men who want to escape into the Universal — that is, into the Infinite,— Sat-chid-ananda,— on the mental plane. The Universal, as I told you, is full of all kinds of things, good and bad.

The Sadhaks, who enter into it and look upon it as their goal, accept whatever comes from it and, sometimes, behave in life with supreme indifference to morality. But their being is not transformed. Among our known Sadhaks — K opened himself to the Universal, could not distinguish, or rather refused to distinguish and at the end went mad. Or take the case of L, an outsider, who was trying to remain in the Universal consciousness with the vital being full of all kinds of impurities. That is not perfection.

When the Divine Power — the Supramental Shakti — works She establishes harmony between the various instruments of nature and also harmony in the whole of our life. R and people like him feel that such a harmonization of the being is a limitation. But it is not a limitation — because that action is in keeping with the truth of our being and our becoming.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, when that Power awakens, one knows not only the truth of being but also that of manifestation. There is inherent harmony on that plane between Truth knowledge and Truth-action.

Sri Aurobindo: No human manifestation can be illimitable or unlimited. But the manifestation in the limited should reflect the Transcendent Power. Human manifestation has a truth behind it and the Supermind shows the truth to be manifested. It is, really speaking, the clue to perfection.

Disciple: I feel a sense of pressure when the Power descends, particularly in the head.

Sri Aurobindo: One must get rid of the sense of pressure. The head indicates the seat of mind and gradually the Power should be made to descent below. When it descends below then it is not felt as pressure but as power which nothing can destroy. The whole being, down to

the cells of body, has to be prepared to receive the Power when it descends.

V: I am going back to my place and will try to practise the yoga there. I want to know whether I ought to cut myself away from all public activity.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no general rule that all who practise yoga should give up all external work. Do you think that the work would stop if you gave it up?

V: There are one or two friends and co-workers to whom I can entrust the work; but even then it would require two or three hours of my attention.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, there are two or three considerations. First of all the necessity of giving up work depends on the demand from within. In the process of Sadhana there comes a stage when even two hours’ attention is felt as a disturbance; then that work has to be given up. Or, if one finds that it is not the work that one has to do, then one has to give it up. So long as such an intense state of Sadhana does not come there is no harm in continuing the work.

V: I have started an organisation for the spread of our literature in my part of the country. What is your advice with regard to it?

Sri Aurobindo: I am neither for it nor against it in the intellectual sense. In this yoga, external action is not to be abandoned. Sometimes action has to be done.

But ordinarily, we have not to do philanthropic work from the same motives. Philanthropy has an egoistic motive, however high it may be. We have to look beyond. For instance, we need not start schools

for the Depressed Classes in order to serve humanity. We have to work as a sacrifice to God and we have therefore to go beyond mental ideals and constructions. When men begin work with these mental or ethical motives, they find them to be true and therefore they are not willing to leave them behind and go beyond. We have to take up the work from the yogic point of view. For example, it is necessary to spread our literature because it spreads the new thought. Some men may receive it correctly and some incorrectly. A movement is set up in the universal mental plane. So also in social work the whole frame is shaken by the new thought and inasmuch as it moves men out of the old groove it is useful. But we have to act from the inner motives.

Sri Aurobindo: The word “egoism” is used in a very limited sense in English,— it means anything for the self. That which is not done for the self is regarded as unegoistic. But that is not so in yoga. One can do all unselfish actions and have full egoism in him. He will have the egoism of the doer. “Nishkam Karma” means first desirelessness. You have to first establish that condition in which good or bad desires are absent. You must realise that it is the power of God — his Shakti — that does the work in reality. All work, good and bad, in you and in the world is her work.

G: If a man takes up that attitude he may go on indiscriminately doing good or bad actions and say that God is doing them.

Sri Aurobindo: He may say so but he will get the return in proportion to the sense of egoism he puts into it.

Sri Aurobindo: They are also in the hands of the Shakti — the divine Power. She knows what fruit to give and what not. When that kind of desirelessness is established you have to go on offering all your actions as a sacrifice to God. You must realise that it is the Shakti that does the work in yourself and She offers the same as a sacrifice to the Lord. The more desirelessness in the action, the purer the offering.

The action and the fruit of action both belong to God,— not to us. There should be no insistence on the fruit of good or unselfish action. When this is done then everything becomes easy.

Sri Aurobindo: When you have realised desirelessness then there will be no impulse of either good or bad desire in yourself. Then there will be an impulsion from the Shakti — the divine Power — and She takes up the work. Slowly the whole of your being opens and everything comes from Above. We merely become the instrument.

G: But how to distinguish between the work that the Shakti impels and that which is prompted by our lower self?

Sri Aurobindo: In order to distinguish the work intended by the Shakti and that dictated by the lower nature you have to be very careful. You must develop the power of looking within. When you look within you must first realise yourself as the Purusha — that is to say, the being quite separate from the movements of Prakriti, nature, going on in the Prana [the vital parts], the Chitta, the Mind etc. Any movement that arises there [in Prakriti] has to be rejected and anything that comes from Above has to be accepted. Not only must you separate yourself,

but the Purusha must become the calm and passive witness. Thus there will be a portion in yourself which will be quiet, unaffected by anything in Prakriti. The calm of the Drashta — witness — then extends to the nature and then nature remains quite unmoved by any disturbance. You can not merely remain unmoved but also, as Anumanta, give the sanction to certain movements of nature and withhold others.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so simple as it appears. If there is sincerity in the offering then the help comes from Above. You must also have persistence.

Sri Aurobindo: Learning is not indispensable. The yoga is done by the Shakti only. You do not know it because you are not aware of the higher movement. You have only to keep the attitude described and be sincere in the offering.

Sri Aurobindo: In this yoga we want to bring down the Truth-consciousness into the whole being — no part being left out. This can be done by the Higher Power itself. What you have to do is to open yourself to it.

Disciple: As the Higher Power is there why does it not work in all men — consciously?

Sri Aurobindo: Because man, at present, is shut up in his mental being, his vital nature and physical consciousness and their limitations. You have to open yourself. By an opening I mean an aspiration in the heart for the

coming down of the Power that is above, and a will in the Mind, or above the Mind, open to it.

The first thing this working of the Higher Power does is to establish Shanti — peace — in all the parts of the being and an opening above. This peace is not mere mental Shanti, it is full of power and, whatever action takes place in it, Samata, equality, is its basis and the Shanti and Samata are never disturbed. What comes from Above is peace, power and joy. It also brings about changes in various parts of our nature so that they can bear the pressure of the Higher Power.

Knowledge also progressively develops showing all in our being that is to be thrown out and what is to be retained. In fact, knowledge and guidance both come and you have constantly to consent to the guidance. The progress may be more in one direction than in another. But it is the Higher Power that works. The rest is a matter of experience and the movement of the Shakti.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not possible. How can you undertake to go in for it if you have no idea about it.

Sadhaka: I need the peace of mind which would be the first result of this yoga. Secondly, I want to know what I should do in my life. I have read Yoga and its Objects and I would like to attain the ideal set forth in it.

Sri Aurobindo: The peace, of course, is the first condition of any yoga and it must not be only mental peace. It must be deeper still, it must pervade all the parts of the being and it must descend from Above.

Sri Aurobindo: kartavyaṃ karma does not mean duty. Duty is a western notion. It is a wrong interpretation of the text of the Gita. It means: that which should be done, that which is ordained.

It is possible to know the kartavyaṃ karma in that sense, if one can rise to something beyond Mind. You spoke of Yoga and its Objects. It was written at a time when my Sadhana had not reached its perfection. It marks a certain stage of my development. But it is not complete. I am not following the idea that is in it.

At present what I am doing is the Supramental yoga. Man, as constituted at present, is a very imperfect manifestation of the Divine — he is very crude. It is so because man is living in an envelope of ignorance — in Mind, Life and Body — so that he is not conscious of the Reality that is beyond Mind. The Supramental Power is above the Mind. What I am trying to do at present is to call down the higher Power to govern Mind, Life and Body. The object of this yoga is not the service of humanity, or the ordinary perfection of man but the evolution of the Supramental Power in the cyclic evolution of the Spirit in the material universe. What one has to do is to rend the veil — the thick veil — that divides the Mind from the Supermind. That work a man cannot do by himself.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, your will has a place. It is used first of all to remove the lower movements, e.g. desires and thoughts etc. Secondly, it can will for the working of the higher Power by putting a stop to the actions that belong to Mind, Life and Body — i.e. of the ignorant Nature. The first result would be a calm much deeper than the mental calm.

Sri Aurobindo: We are not concerned with that at all primarily. What one puts forth generally outside in the form of action is what one internally is. Our first aim is not to work for humanity in the current sense of the term, but to found life on a Higher Consciousness than the present ignorant and limited consciousness of mind, Life and Body. At present, man — I mean the average man — is physical and vital in his nature, using Mind for satisfying his vital being. We want to leave Mind — and intellect — behind and find a Higher Consciousness. One may call it Nirvana, Passive Brahman, Sachchidananda or Higher Power or by any name.

So, our first task is to find God and base life on that Consciousness. In that process what is necessary for humanity will naturally be done. But that is not our direct aim. Ours is a tremendous task. It is an adventure in which one must be prepared to leave behind his desires and passions, intellectual preferences and mental constructions in order to enable the Higher Power to do its work. You have to see whether you can give your consent to the radical transformation that is inevitable.

Sri Aurobindo: It is only one minute back that I told you about the Supramental yoga and how is it that you have come to a decision? You do not know the hazard. The acceptance of this yoga means a great and decisive step in one’s life and you have to give consent to the working of the Higher Power in order to be able to go through. There should be nothing in the mental or the vital being which would come in the way of the higher working.

Sadhaka: I have been trying to prepare myself for the last three years. I wanted to come here three years ago. But I did not consider myself fit for this yoga at that time. So far as I can see, I have no mental idea left except the freedom of my country. There was a time when I would

have postponed the spiritual life for India’s freedom.

Sri Aurobindo: You need not do it now; it is a thing guaranteed. But you cannot make even that a condition for entering this yoga. It is a high adventure, as I told you. It is not like the other yogic systems where you get some touch of the Higher Reality and leave the rest untransformed. My yoga makes demands that have to be met,— it is a radical transition from the present state of human consciousness. We accept life but that does not mean that in this yoga there is no renunciation. It only means we do not annul any of the faculties of the human being. What we put forth is not something mental, vital or physical but that which comes from the Supramental.

Sadhaka: I would do as you suggest; but at present I do not know any working higher than the Mind. What is to be done till then?

Sri Aurobindo: You have to make a choice: the individual is absolutely free in this yoga. I cannot crush your individuality. I mean, I can, but it is not allowed in this yoga. So, the working of the Higher Power depends upon the choice you make.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I can protect you if you have the absolute faith and make the right choice. If you make the wrong choice I cannot protect you. You must know that this is not a simple affair at all. It is not a revolt against the British Government which any one can easily do. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature and so one must think deeply before enrolling oneself with me.

There will be tremendous forces that will attack you and you have constantly to go on making the right choice and giving consent to the working of the Higher Truth and thereby prove your strength.

If you begin this yoga the first result is likely to be a

feverish internal commotion, aśānti, rather than śānti, peace, that you are in search of. And when you come to the material plane,— there especially, the odds are almost insurmountable.

Sadhaka: What is the meaning of coming to the physical and material plane? Does it mean that when the Supermind comes down to the material plane then the difficulties are very great?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There even I do not know the result. An indication I have received from within saying that it is going to be. Yet I myself do not know the end of my adventure. Very few in the past have followed this yoga and none has conquered the material plane. That is why it is an adventure into the Unknown. One must have faith and make the right choice.

His vital being has some strength and also there is a certain psychic capacity in him. But his intellect is not fine and subtle and elastic. He has perhaps intellectual vanity and sense of self-sufficiency which may be a great obstacle in his yoga. He was asked to practise the preliminary step of separating Purusha and Prakriti — the witness self and the active nature.

The same Sadhaka again had an interview with Sri Aurobindo before his departure.

Sadhaka: I have begun to practise the yoga in the way you have asked me to. I find it very congenial and profitable.

Sri Aurobindo: You have to continue it. What you know generally as your self is only the surface being and its superficial workings. What man thinks to be “himself” is only a movement in nature,— a movement in the universal mind, universal life and universal Matter. What you have to do is to separate, or rather detach, yourself from the movements of Nature. You will then find that you are not only watching the universal action of Nature but consenting to it.

The movement of watching that is going on in you is not the separation of the true Purusha, but the Mental Purusha. As the Purusha you can not only watch as the sākṣī — witness — but act as the giver of sanction — anumantā. You can stop the movement of Nature that is going on in you.

Sadhaka: Yes. I found I could control my thought or imagination by sheer force of will.

Sri Aurobindo: You have not to suppress the natural movement. That would only mean that it would remain there, or would go deeper in Prakriti — nature — and then rear its head again at some convenient opportunity. What you have to do is to reject the movement, to cast it out of your nature. You can do that by detaching yourself more and more from all movements.

Sadhaka: Should I try to locate the psychological functions in different centres of the body?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, yoga means growing more and more conscious. Even the movement of the subliminal self must be felt and experienced. The centre of vision — and will — is between the eye-brows. The centre of the psychic being is in the heart — not in the emotional being but behind it. The vital being is centred in the navel.

All this is not the real Soul,— it is nature. The Soul is deeper within. The direct method of the Supramental yoga would be to know the subliminal or the psychic being and open it to the Higher Power. But it is a drastic method, and if the Adhar is not pure then it would lead to a mixture of Truth and falsehood, of what comes from Above and what comes from below, and such a state is dangerous in certain cases. You need not take up that method but this preparatory practice which is regarded as very high in other yogas. It is really the first essential step in the Supramental yoga.

When you separate the Purusha from Prakriti you experience a certain calm. That calm is the Purusha consciousness watching the action of Prakriti — nature. It is what is called the Silent Witness. That calm deepens as you detach yourself more and more from Prakriti. You also feel that it is wide, that it is the Lord. It can stop any movement of nature though its will may not be all at once effective; after a time it must prevail. In order to find this Purusha consciousness you have to reject everything in the lower nature, i.e., desires, feelings and mental ideas.

Sri Aurobindo: You must have the will for it: will and desire are two distinct things. You have to distinguish between true and false movements in the nature and give your consent to the true ones.

Sadhaka: We must use our Buddhi — intellect — for distinguishing the true from the false.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not by Buddhi or understanding that you perceive these things,— it is by an inner perception or vision. It is not the intellect but something higher

that sees. It is the Higher Mind in which that inner perception, intuition etc. takes place.

All true knowledge is by identity, not at all by the intellectual reason. You may put the knowledge into an intellectual form by the Buddhi or intellect, but the knowledge is essentially by identity. You know anger by being one with it, though you can detach yourself and see it as something happening in you. All knowledge is like that.

The discrimination therefore is not rational but automatic by an inner perception. There is also a faculty called revelation which represents the Truth in terms of figures; there is also inspiration which is heard as a voice either in the mind or in the heart. Even this is a very hard practice. One has to be on guard against the lower movements like self-sufficiency, vanity etc., and reject them.

Sadhaka: I want to know what should be the way of my family life. Should I observe Brahmacharya, celibacy?

Sri Aurobindo: We do not make rules in this yoga. Of course, if you followed the direct Supramental yoga then it would be compulsory. But even in a preparatory yoga it is better if you can observe Brahmacharya. You have to grow from humanity into something higher and so you must get away from the animal level. In the Supramental yoga no lower movements should be indulged in from the lower poise.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if you can observe it it is better, though one does not make a hard and fast rule about it. There are three things in the vital nature which are very great obstacles in the yoga — there are many others besides but they are of minor importance. 1. Lust. 2, Pride and Vanity — that “I am a great Sadhak” etc. 3. Ambition for success or greed for money.

Sadhaka: But suppose I am not here and stay at my place and find some difficulty, then how should I receive your help?

Sri Aurobindo: You must detach yourself from the obstacle and watch it and then you have to call down the help from Above. You can always receive my help if once the relation is established. Man is not confined to the physical body. The real Soul has almost nothing to do with the physical man. It is not necessary for me to give my thought to you, the subliminal self can give the necessary help even without the thought — mind knowing anything about it.

Raghunath P. Thakar, a Brahmin from Virpur near Rajkot, came to see Sri Aurobindo. He had been to some saint at Rupal [near Kalol], had practised Rajayoga, also some Hathayoga and met Nathuram Sharma in Kathiawad. [The appointment was given on the 3rd January 1924.]

Sri Aurobindo: What is the aim of the yoga you want to practise; that is to say, what do you expect from this yoga?

Raghunath: Vṛtti nirodha — “the control of the waves and vibrations of consciousness” and to be one with God.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the aim of Rajayoga and you should go to a Rajayogi Guru.

Raghunath: I have come to take up any path that you may point out. I always had the idea that I should get

something from you. I am ready to do what you tell me.

Sri Aurobindo: Your vital and physical systems are very weak and this yoga makes very strong demands. In this yoga we do not run away from the difficulties. So all of them are concentrated against the sadhaka. Therefore, one must be very strong to fight out the forces successfully.

In the meantime it was brought to Sri Aurobindo’s notice that this man had tried to practise Hathayoga without a Guru and had begun with Khechari Mudra, Tratak and Uddiyan accompanied by Kapal Bhati Pranayama and ended by being sick. Raghunath was all along thinking that Sri Aurobindo was a great Hathayogi, because he meditated with open eyes and was able to do Uthapana, levitation.

Disciple: In Khechari Mudra the lower connecting link of the tongue is to be cut.

Sri Aurobindo: I think Keshavananda at Chandod also had his tongue freed by cutting it for Khechari.

Sri Aurobindo: I believe it leads to a kind of trance which may give a certain Ananda.

Disciple: The idea seems to be to invert the freed tongue so as to close the passage of breathing. The two nostrils are called the Ida and Pingala currents of Prana. The third is Sushumna on the crown of the head. When these two are stopped, by inverting the tongue and blocking the passage of breathing, then Sushumna begins to function. The theory is that Nectar-Amrita — is dropping from the Sushumna even now but as the tongue dose not

taste it man does not enjoy the nectar. There is also a tradition that in Khechari Mudra one is able to fly.

Sri Aurobindo: It only gives a kind of trance and a consequent Ananda: I do not know what else it does.

Sri Aurobindo: It only clears the sight and ultimately helps in opening the subtle sight between the eye-brows I don’t think there is any other use of it.

On the 6th January Sri Aurobindo gave his final decision about Raghunath P. Thakar.

Sri Aurobindo: He has his own ideas and if he wants to practise Rajayoga he must go to a Rajayogi Guru. For this yoga his mind must undergo a radical change. My giving him the yoga at present is out of the question. If he wants to prepare himself he can practise the separation of Purusha and Prakriti.

Two Tamil brothers, the elder of whom was a pleader, wanted to meet Sri Aurobindo this morning.

They claimed to be guided here by the spirit of their eldest brother, Jagan Nathan, who had died at Rangoon on 1st December 1918. They brought with them three notebooks containing his communications and some automatic writings. The younger brother was the medium.

Sri Aurobindo: Some of the answers are meaningless. The definition of «genius» dose not make any sense.

This man must first of all ascertain whether it is his brother who is communicating with him. And secondly, how close he know that what the spirit writes or says, is under my inspiration?

Generally what happens in such cases is that the spirit

tells just the thing that is present in the subconscious part of the medium; the spirit that communicates knows it and gives it out; or if someone present at the planchette has some thought in his subconscious or conscious being the spirit gives it out.

Of course, spirits can act on their own through mediums, or those who have passed away or those who are living can communicate through them. But in that case the medium must be very powerful and pure.

The brothers wanted to meet Sri Aurobindo. On being requested by the disciple Sri Aurobindo said:

Sri Aurobindo: If they come to me because of the spirit’s guidance then it is not sufficient preparation for the yoga.

The report was that they had seen Sri Aurobindo in a dream asking them to come to him, in addition to the guidance of the spirit of their dead brother.

The two brothers were disappointed when they could not meet Sri Aurobindo. It was conveyed to them that the demand for the yoga should not depend upon a planchette communication, it must come from a deeper source. And they must leave the judgment about their fitness for yoga to Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: The younger brother who has allowed himself to be mediumised should be told that it is very dangerous for him to meddle with this spirit-world without proper knowledge. It is especially dangerous for people who are themselves not strong.

He should, after giving up this practice, make his mind strong by the Karmayoga. It will require him to give up his desires and his ego. He can do his actions in the spirit of devotion, offering them all as a sacrifice to God. He can thus practise dedication of all his actions to God and try to see Him in all men and in all happenings. That would be his meditation.

At present he cannot take up this yoga because this is a yoga of self-surrender in which he has to open himself to a higher Power. But as he has already opened himself to other spirits such a passive state would not be good for him. All sorts of spirits would come and try to take possession of his being. So it is not safe for him to take up this yoga, apart from other considerations.

Amrilal: I want to know how I can keep down weaknesses of my own nature. If the remedy requires me to give up the work that I am doing, I am afraid, my nature would not allow it. I am painfully conscious of my own shortcomings.

Sri Aurobindo: Weaknesses are natural to man; in fact, I have never met a person who was perfect.

Sri Aurobindo: If people honour you it is none of your concern to accept the honour. You have to become indifferent to it and go on doing your work.

Sri Aurobindo: One way is to keep them down by a sort of mental control or by making your will strong. Of course, you can’t get rid of them in that way. But you can keep them down so that they may not trouble you.

My way of dealing with them is quite different. What one speaks of as check or control is always a moral control. All such solutions are mental while I would deal with them spiritually. That method is quite different.

Some visitors from the Cocanada Congress came to Pondicherry and according to the French law they were asked by the C.I.D. police, usually watching the Ashram gate, to declare themselves. The crowd was large and, being fresh from the Congress, not in a mood to submit to the demand of the French law. So it moved towards the sea, and one or two Sadhaks also along with it. The French Police in uniform approached there visitors and asked them to go to the Police Station for declaration.

There was argument and some scuffle and the visitors wanted to take the matter to the court. This would cast reflection on the Ashram as the visitors had come to it and also as some Sadhaks were moving with them. Since this affected the Ashram, the information was conveyed to Sri Aurobindo. At first he sent word that “no case should be proceeded with, and things must be settled with the Police Commissioner”.

But the visitors — some of them at any rate — wanted to make a case. This information was also sent to Sri Aurobindo. Generally he did not come out between 1 and 4.30 p.m. But as the matter was urgent he came down at 3 o’clock and said:

“What is all this trouble about? I have been staying here so long and I have my own status with the French Government. They have not only given me protection but treated me with great courtesy. If the visitors want to make a case it is their own look — out, but I do not want to make any case. Our business is with the officials and not with the policeman. If we have to say anything we must go and inform the officer and not talk to the policeman. It is absurd for me to think of going to the court. I am not only a non-co-operator, I am an enemy of the British-Empire. If the visitors, who are non-co-operators, want to make a case it is their business.”

He then instructed two disciples to go to the Police Commissioner and inquire about the matter and make the

position of the Ashram clear by saying:

“We do not invite visitors; so it is the affair of the Police to deal with them. But none of the inmates of the Ashram should be treated in the same manner.”

“It is an attempt, once more, to break through the quiet atmosphere which I have succeeded in creating here with great difficulty. The forces have been trying to create the old political situation. When I first came here it was a very difficult situation. Now our connection with the French Government is purely formal, almost mechanical.

These visitors bring so many things with them and they may cast things on people here. I do not mean it is their fault. But one must keep them separate.”

A young man from Tinnavelly, knowing Sanskrit, came this morning and wanted to see Sri Aurobindo. He said he had received inspiration from Para Shakti to go to Sri Aurobindo who is Bhagawan. He was directly going up the staircase without asking anyone when he was stopped. It seemed that he had been fasting for some days; he brought fruits to offer to Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: He won’t, probably, go, because the Para Shakti has not asked him to go there. Very inconvenient Para Shakti! She has asked him to come here!

Sri Aurobindo: (to another disciple) But when he turns up tomorrow what are you going to tell him?

Disciple: He says he has come for Maha Mantra. I asked him if he was ready to do anything you ask him to do. He said “Yes”. Then I told him you might ask him to go back. He said he would if you asked him to. He can talk in Sanskrit.

Sri Aurobindo: That means he wants to see me! I have no time to listen to his Sanskrit.

The man who came with the inspiration from Para Shakti was finally seen by Sri Aurobindo who found that his physical and vital beings were weak and his mind lacked discretion. He therefore decided to send him back.

These — the physical, the vital and the mental — parts are the basis; unless the ground is there no structure can be raised on it, he said.

A wire was sent in reply to Krishnashashi asking him not to come to Pondicherry. [Krishnashashi, a Sadhaka from Chittagong, had become deranged in mind]. Another wire, was sent to a disciple at Calcutta to stop Krishnashashi from proceeding to Pondicherry.

The contents of a letter from a pleader of Wardha — one Mr. Rajwade — were read out to Sri Aurobindo. It showed signs of increasing mental disorder. He wanted to become a yogi, a writer, and then an M.A. and L.L.M., if possible! He wanted to borrow Rs. 3000 if Sri Aurobindo promised him that he would finish the course.

Sri Aurobindo: Which course? You mean the course to madness? He wants me to finish his course?

Disciple: It is very strange that there is a tendency to draw mad people here at present.

Disciple: That Para-Shakti-man has been giving away his clothes one by one every day to somebody!

Sri Aurobindo: I hope he won’t turn up tomorrow without anything on! (laughter)

Disciple: First of all, it would be a sight for you! (laughter). Madness has certainly some attraction for Sadhana. I counted eight mad men with X of Bengal.

Sri Aurobindo: I must say I have not yet advanced to the stage of having so many! (laughter)

Disciple: There is a proposal that where there is a centre of Sadhana there ought to be, side by side, an asylum — I mean a lunatic asylum! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Have you seen the papers today? Dr. P. C. Ray has conclusively proved that the Charkba is economically paying.

Sri Aurobindo: No, no. He has proved that with the Charkha a man can earn four rupees per year or perhaps per month, I don’t remember! (laughter)

Disciple: Even the most trusted workers in Khadi have had to admit that the Charkha cannot stand as an independent industry from the economic point of view.

Disciple: The Modern Review and other papers have been complaining that fine-silk-weaving and gold-lace work and other fine handicrafts are being starved because of insistence on Khadi, while foreign-made imitation Khadi is coming to India unchecked! The artisans of Pattan, Surat, Paithan etc. are without a market for their fine products!

Sri Aurobindo: The way they are proceeding they might completely destroy even the little of the fine artistic value that is left in the country.

Disciple: The other movement to prevent milk from the villages being sold to the dairy is also very unjust to the villager. It hits him economically because the dairies pay a higher price for the milk. It is very unfair to ask the villager not to sell his milk and get a higher price.

Sri Aurobindo: The standpoint of these workers seems to be that as we are poor, let us become poorer still and die.

The talk then turned to a shooting tragedy at Calcutta. A young Bengali shot Mr. Day, mistaking him for Mr. Taggart, the Chief of Police in Bengal.

Disciple: It would have been better if the young man had killed himself immediately after the shooting so that he would at least have had the satisfaction of thinking that he had killed Taggart! Now, perhaps, he will be transported for life and he knows that he has not killed Taggart.

Sri Aurobindo: According to the law he must be hanged. Then he will be greatly disappointed in heaven, if he does not find Taggart there! (laughter)

Mahatma Gandhi had an interview with Dilip Kumar Roy at Poona. The main subject discussed was “art”. During the talk Mahatmaji said he was himself an artist, that “asceticism was the highest art”. He expressed the view that he had kept the Ashram walls bare of any paintings because he believed that walls were meant for protection and not for painting. He maintained that no art could be greater than Nature’s,— Life is the greatest art, etc.

Disciple: He has said to Dilip that asceticism is the greatest art and no art can be greater than Nature’s.

Disciple: He has looked at the sky studded with stars in the silent night and finds no art greater than that.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is an old idea,— I believe Tolstoian — that Nature’s is the greatest art

Disciple: He may be feeling some scruples about his qualification in the matter of art, for he says, “My friends smile when I say that I am an artist.” He maintains that Khadi is artistic.

Sri Aurobindo: It would be quite another thing if he said, “Khadi can be made artistic”. As it is, no one can say it is artistic.

Disciple: Why not? Sometimes it is compared to pearl-white in its colour. There is the stamp of the individual on it — while mill-made cloth is mechanically uniform.

Sri Aurobindo: It is always a sign of a weak mind when one tries to combine things that rationally cannot be put together such as purity, swaraj, politics, religion etc. with Khadi! Nobody objects to Khadi being used on its own merits. Why not use it as such?

Why put music, religion, swaraj etc. into it?

Disciple: In the days of Khilafat — agitation they used to say: “Swaraj is Khilafat” [meaning thereby the identification of Khilafat agitation with the fight for swaraj]; “Khilafat is cow” because the cow, the emblem of Hinduism, should be protected by the Muslims!); and we used to say “Yes, Swaraj is a cow”! (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: Pure mind simply judges or watches, arranges and accepts the Truth, while vital or dynamic mind acts. Pure mind does not act in that way.

Sri Aurobindo: Because the physico-vital is not yet completely taken possession of by the higher Power. The physico-vital is a very thick layer and when you work it out once, it again covers up the vital being and, for the time being, tries to appear as the whole movement in the vital.

Disciple: How to know whether a movement takes place in the vital mind or in the physical mind?

Sri Aurobindo: You can always know it by this test: if it goes on repeating almost mechanically one and the same thing without creating any new movement, then it is in the physical mind.

If the movement is rooted in the physical mind the best thing is not to give it any importance. The physical is very obstinate; whereas a movement that

takes place in the vital or the mental is very subtle and creates new forms. These difficulties persist to the very end. You must clearly distinguish between various movements in the lower being. We do not want to leave out in our yoga the common and even the petty things.

Sri Aurobindo: The vital mind is an impulse first and thought afterwards. It is, you can say, force first and thought afterwards. For instance, desire — if deprived of the personal element — is an impulse or force going out or trying to realise itself.

While mental will is the will connected with thought. It is primarily a thought-force. Every thought has its will. Even in the Supermind there is a distinction: there is sometimes a force that tries to realise itself while there is at times a knowledge that tries to be effective, though primarily it is knowledge and secondarily force. In the highest Supermind the two are one: Truth and Force, knowledge and will — both are simultaneous and effective.

The Sadhaka must make the calm and equality absolutely secure so that whatever may happen the inner detachment and equality cannot be broken.

Haribhai Amin was asked by me about his conversation with Mahatma Gandhi concerning Sri Aurobindo and the Pondicherry Ashram.

Haribhai: I went to see him at Poona but I did not talk to him then about Pondicherry. But when he was staying at Juhu I went to see him and then he asked me if I had visited Pondicherry. I said: “Yes”.

Haribhai: No. But I have taken the yoga, and Kashibhai is staying there, his son Mahesh has taken the yoga and Bhaktiben has been given instructions for Bhakti yoga

Gandhi: What is the method of yoga? How do you meditate? Do you meditate on an image or do you practise Pranayama, Dhyan and Dharana?

Haribhai: Yes, some from Bengal, some from the Panjab, some from Behar, Madras and Gujarat.

Haribhai: One is Purani, then Kashibhai, Mr. and Mrs. Punamchand and Champaklal.

Haribhai: I do not know that, but it may take two or three years to complete his Sadhana.

Gandhi: But first it was said that he would come out in 1920, then it was 1922 and now you say two or three years more!

Haribhai: I do not know. But I think it may take two or three years. Why do you not go to Pondicherry and see Sri Aurobindo?

Gandhi: I had sent Devadas there and after hearing from him I have no desire to see him. Devadas put certain question to him.

Sri Aurobindo: All that I remember is that he asked my views about non-violence. I told him: Suppose there is an invasion of India by the Afghans, how are you going to meet it with non-violence? That is all I remember. I do not think he put me any other question.

Lala Lajpat Rai came with Dr. Nihalchand, Krishna Das, and Purushottamdas Tandon to meet Sri Aurobindo. Lajpat Rai and Sri Aurobindo met privately for about forty-five minutes; the rest of the company waited outside. From their faces when they came out it seemed both of them had agreed on many points. Sri Aurobindo then met the other members of party. He turned to Purushottamadas Tandon.

Lajpat Rai: Are you really trying to carry it out? (turning to Sri Aurobindo) they are trying to capture local bodies.

P. T.: I am not in favour of that programme, because it will lead in the end to lust for power and then personal differences and jealousies would also creep in. We cannot, in that case, justify the high hopes which people have about our work.

Lajpat Rai: If you want to get into the governing bodies you must make big promises; that is the nature of democracy.

Sri Aurobindo: Then, why democracy at all? The lust for power will always be there. You can’t get over it by shutting out all positions of power; our workers must get accustomed to it. They must learn to hold the positions for the nation. This difficulty would be infinitely greater when you get Swaraj. These things are there even in Europe. The Europeans are just the same as we are. Only, they have got discipline — which we lack — and a keen sense of national honour which we have not got.

Sri Aurobindo: You can’t prevent such weaknesses. What you have to do is to bring about that discipline and that sense of national honour in our people. By the way, how do you like the Charkha programme?

P.T.: In the absence of a better programme, it disciplines the people and makes them do something for the nation. It brings to the front the idea of common action for a definite end.

P. T.: It may if one realises the Bhava — the feeling — that is behind spinning.

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid, you can’t get that Bhava — feeling — from me.

You can only get the work of Charkha with a sentry over me! (laughter)

P. T.: Yes, I know that India lost her independence even when there was the Charkha, the spinning-wheel. But as there is no other programme we are following it.

Sri Aurobindo: What we require is not an outward action merely — like spinning — but discipline and a sense of national honour.

Lajpat Rai: Yes, what we lack is the sense of a common interest in the midst of conflicting interests.

V: At first the Power was working on the mental plane. Now it is working on the vital and even below the vital plane.

V: When the mind becomes peaceful I am able to see desires and impulses etc. in the vital.

Sri Aurobindo: When you have got the peace what things do you perceive coming into you?

V: There are thoughts that continue to come even when there is peace. Sometimes the mind gets identified with them and moves with them. Sometimes it is able to remain separate.

Sri Aurobindo: That you can see even with the mind; have you experienced the existence of the vital being separate from the mind?

V: Yes, Seven or eight times I had the experience of a separate vital body [sheath] of my own. And I felt its existence quite separate from the mind. Sometimes that vital body used to go out also.

V: Sometimes it descends down to the toes of the feet, (after a pause) How should I proceed now in my Sadhana?

1. The peace that you feel in the mind must be constant and permanent and you should feel yourself separate from all the thoughts, ideas and suggestions that may pass through your mind. That is to say, you should have the constant experience of the Purusha Consciousness. This basis of peace must be there whether you are meditating or not.

2. You should have an aspiration to separate your vital being and have its experience as a separate entity, so that the vital would be able to see the effect of other universal [vital] forces upon its own self. These are the

two things you must try to establish during your stay here.

Sri Aurobindo: There is not one meaning of the word “purity”. It depends upon how you understand the word. But what I call essential purity can be attained by making the basis of peace firm and establishing the whole consciousness in the Purusha firmly. When one is firmly established in the Purusha consciousness then one has also got a basis for purity because the Purusha is “ever-pure”, Nitya Suddha; he does not require purity, he is inherently pure. Afterwards the purity that remains to be established is that of Prakriti. Once one is established in the Purusha consciousness the Prakriti — nature — automatically begins to get purified.

Narmadashanker B. Vyas, a native of Lunavada, came here some days back and wanted to take up Yoga from Sri Aurobindo. He refused to give him the Yoga saying: —

A photo was taken and shown to Sri Aurobindo. It made a favourable impression and he found that the psychic being could open — though he found (on reading the photograph) that there was hardly any development of the mental being and the physical being was too weak for this Yoga. He saw him seven days later and told him that he could not give this Yoga to him:

“This is a very difficult Yoga and it makes no less demands on the Sadhaka than

the old methods. Everything is to be given up to the Power that is above the Mind. This Yoga accepts life but that does not mean that it accepts the ignorance of life”.

Sri Aurobindo: I can’t give my Yoga as I do not find the necessary capacity in your nature. But, if you like, I can give you something that may prepare you for this Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: It means: “We choose the Supreme Light of the divine Sun; we aspire that it may impel our minds.”

The Sun is the symbol of the divine Light that is coming down and Gayatri gives expression to the aspiration asking that divine Light to come down and give impulsion to all the activities of the mind.

In this Yoga, also, we want to bring down that divine Sun to govern not only the mind but the vital and the physical being also. It is very difficult effort. All cannot bear the Light of the Sun when it comes down. Gayatri chooses the Divine Light of the Truth asking it to come down and govern the mind. It is the capacity to bear the Light that constitutes the fitness for this Yoga.

You can meditate on this Mantra, keeping in mind the meaning, and you can aspire also to become fit for this Yoga. When you are able to fix your mind you may remember any one of the forms of the Godhead. You can pray to your Ishta-Devata that he may make you fit

for this Yoga and that it may come and work in you.

Really speaking, this Yoga is not done by the power of man: it is done by the Divine Power and so She can bring about every change in the capacity of the Sadhaka.

You should direct the aspiration towards the Supreme. When you have succeeded in doing it, you should watch all your inner activities and see what they are. Whatever you find there you must calm down. This calm you must go on deepening, so much so that you should feel quiet, wide, large in consciousness. If you can establish this calm you will be able to do this Yoga.

The calm must become deep and so settled that even while doing ordinary work you should feel it within yourself and see the activity as something quite separate from yourself.

You should have a fixed time for meditation and must be regular in doing it. You can write about your experience from time to time.

After 1910 when Sri Aurobindo was engrossed in Sadhana he read very few books. But he was in contact with the world through papers and magazines. Besides, the disciples that were living in the Ashram from 1923 used to read books and they brought some of the ideas and opinions from the books to Sri Aurobindo’s notice in the evening talks. Here it may be necessary only to state that the initiative in these talks was very often taken by the disciples and that these talks arc not complete reviews of the books mentioned. They will be found interesting as revealing a particular side of Sri Aurobindo’s personality,— one in which he was speaking freely to disciples with whom he was familiar.

Disciple: The “Utkal Star” has written an article on the 15th of August and the writer points out the absence of Islamic culture in the grand synthesis you have made. I believe the Modern Review also pointed out the same.

Sri Aurobindo: The Mahomedan or Islamic culture hardly gave anything to the world which may be said to be of fundamental importance and typically its own. Islamic culture was mainly borrowed from others. Their mathematics and astronomy and other subjects were derived from India and Greece. It is true they gave some of these things a new turn. But they have not created much. Their philosophy and their religion are very simple and what they call Sufism is largely the result of gnostics who lived in Persia and it is the logical outcome of that school of thought largely touched by Vedanta.

I have, however, mentioned that Islamic culture contributed the Indo-saracenic architecture to Indian culture. I do not think it has done anything more in India of cultural value. It gave some new forms to art and poetry. Its political institutions were always semi-barbaric.

“Avatar of Swadeshi” and Kalelkar’s interpretation of Swadeshi were the subject of talk.

Sri Aurobindo: According to his view, even this “gospel of swadeshi” is needless. Everybody must produce what he wants and, at the most, inform his neighbour; even that a man who observes strict swadeshi would not and should not do!

D.: I had once a chance of asking Mahatmaji about his using the railway, press, motor car, telegraph:“How does it all fit in with your opposition to machinery?”

D.: He said, “I am using the machine to fight the machine, as we remove a thorn with a thorn.”

Sri Aurobindo: I see; so do the peace-makers say; they make war in order to end war! (laughter)

Dr. Joules Romain demonstrated in Paris that a person with his eyes closed with dough of flour was able to see without using the organ of sight. The book affirms four centres of vision in the body over and above the eyes.

It appears from the description that the man does not see at once but begins to see after a time. Colour is seen invariably by the nose and by the cheek. Before the sight begins the man sees colours and lights. For small objects he sees the thing dancing and then the sight settles down to the object.

Sri Aurobindo came out with a cutting from a paper about Eyeless Sight. Two articles had been written on the subject. In the first one the writer, as Sri Aurobindo put it, “was wisely foolish.” He characterised the phenomenon as an illusion or due to self-hypnotism etc. The second article, Sri Aurobindo said, was better. He continued:

The corpuscles in the cells about which he speaks are not the centres of sight. They are general centres of sense-functions and can be used for any purpose of sense-perception. All the senses are everywhere. The ancients knew this truth. One can see from everywhere in the body. In the normal human being the different senses become organised: for example, the eye for seeing. But all the cells are capable of being conscious.

Sri Aurobindo: In his case it seems to be either a psychic or a psycho-physical phenomenon; because, in the first place, you have to meditate and, secondly, the doctor maintains that sight is all round.

Disciple: But he demands that the coat and the shirt must be removed and that the body must be naked to the waist. This eyeless sight, he says, can see in the dark but not in the light.

Sri Aurobindo: All these ideas are due to Sanskars — fixed impressions. For instance, you are not able to see with the other parts of the face except the eyes because it is a Sanskara.

Disciple: But his experiment failed in the presence of scientists. And Dr. Romain explained it by saying that the atmosphere there was hostile to his work. He succeeded when he tried again at the house of Anatole France.

Sri Aurobindo: That evidently shows that the power working is either psychic or psycho-physical. This phenomenon is quite possible. In her childhood the Mother was able to see even in the dark and she had developed the power of sight everywhere. She is, even now, able to see from behind and this general sight works more accurately than the physical eyes. It works best when the eyes are closed.

Disciple: I saw Prof. B. from behind my body when he was going away. This power, I then felt, could be developed. Is this psychic sight?

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic vision is between the eye-brows, in front, above the head. In fact not only are all the senses everywhere in the body, but they are even outside the body. You can feel the touch of two different persons and, remaining at a great distance, know how they must be feeling it.

Disciple: Would all these powers come automatically after transformation, or are they to be developed by the Sadhak.

Sri Aurobindo: Everything is there, but you have to organise these things. In my case I have to develop each of them. The Power is there and is working but the physical has not the faith and so it has got to work out.

Disciple: Can it be said that this way of developing each power is part of the general fight with the physical obstacles?

Disciple: Is it not dangerous for small adhars to try to concentrate on these powers, because they may be swallowed by them?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be. I can never understand that stupid fear of acquiring Siddhis — occult powers — which our people are having. Why should every one be spiritual? Those who want to attain power must do that. I mean if that is the only thing they can do in this life let them do it. He was telling me the same thing this morning. For instance, if a man is capable of writing good poetry why should he be expected to do all things in life? Let one thing be well done. That way the soul develops.

Sri Aurobindo: That does not matter; one has to take one’s chance, risk is always there. The soul develops by undertaking adventures and even stumbling often. Before that you can’t hope to win the crown. It is good to have a certain protection in the beginning and to progress on the spiritual side. But one has to take the risk, reject the lower path and take to the higher truth. Besides, all these things are necessary for the divine manifestation.

Sri Aurobindo: They are. In society, in politics, in fact in every field progress is like that. That is why a moderate policy is foolish. They believe that by gradually going on they will reach the goal, but that is never the case. You go on to a certain extent and then something comes up and envelops the being. The whole of what you have done is broken up and you have to begin over again.

Sri Aurobindo: Interesting! The vital, you may say, is interesting. But the physical is most idiotically stupid. It is full of Tamas; it wants to go on in its own slow process.

Disciple: The new scientific discoveries which the Westerners are stumbling upon are bound to change their mentality.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course; after the discovery of radium and the theory of light science has taken a higher step. Now it can hardly be called materialistic.

Disciple: The phenomenon of eyeless sight reminds me of the case of a man who emitted “blue light”. The scientists were puzzled and thought that they were hypnotised to see the light. Then they exposed photographic plates and found that the light was being emitted.

Sri Aurobindo: (smiling) All these phenomena — eyeless sight, light-emission or miraculous cures — are psychic and it is absurd to try to explain them away and more absurd to doubt them.

Disciple: There was the reported case of a missionary who cured a blind man, and also miraculous cures are reported from St. Xavier’s tomb at Goa.

Sri Aurobindo: Those kinds of phenomena are very common even today. In France at Notre Dame, at Lourdes lame people are cured. Only, the power that is working there acts very irregularly, some get absolutely cured,

while some are not affected. But all those who want to see and be convinced can see them. A friend of the Mother — a lady — was so cured. This working is due to the presence of some psychic power. There are no limits to its capacities. There are authentic cases of men effecting such cures without themselves being conscious of the psychic force working through them.

Disciple: Ramakrishna felt the blows given to a bullock and there were marks of the stripes on his body. Is this action due to the kind of extended sense of which Dr. Joules speaks?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That kind of story is current about many yogis. It is, of course, due to the psychic sense — which is not limited to the physical body — but the intensity of it is due to something else.

There was talk about a poem written by Mrs. Maud Sharma, wife of Thakur Dutt Sharma. It was a poem on a “chair”.

Sri Aurobindo: Some of the phrases she used are rather remarkable. There is some poetic capacity in her.

Disciple: Did you read Harin Chattopadhyaya’s “faints Series” recently published?

Sri Aurobindo: I read his Pundalik and Mird Bai. The form of drama does not suit him. It is most undramatic. He should not go in for it.

There was a letter from G. V. Subba Rao containing his correspondence with Gandhiji, V. Hanumantha Rao of Nellore and also his letter to Drummond. In the first letter Mahatmaji said that he had respect for Sri Aurobindo’s intellect

and that he was open to light from any quarter about Truth and non-violence.

In the second letter he wrote to Subba Rao that Devadas had seen Sri Aurobindo and that he would follow his own light.

He also mentioned in this letter that he knew about Sri Aurobindo from Devadas and C. R. Das.

Sri Aurobindo: These men, Chesterton and G. B. S., try to be clever at any cost. It seems that G. B. S. wants to put in here the idea of evolution.

Sri Aurobindo: I have finished reading Joan of Arc. It is no-drama at all. Joan talks like a pushing impertinent peasant girl and Charles VII talks like a school urchin and all the rest talk like London shop-boys except when they talk about high subjects, and then they talk Shaw. There was a certain poetry in Joan’s speech, action, etc. But here the whole thing is knocked out and instead you have vulgar modern prose.

In order to write about that age you ought to know about the Roman Catholic Church, feudalism etc. Bernard Shaw has his own views about them and instead of giving a picture of those times he has given his own opinion on them.

There was an article in the “Sabarmati” by Kishorlal Mashruwala stating: “However great a yogi may be he ought not to say anything against morality”.

Sri Aurobindo: What does he mean by “morality”? So long as you need to be virtuous you have not attained the pure spiritual height where you have not to think whether the action is moral or not. These people hastily conclude that when you ask them to rise above morality, you are asking them to sink below good and evil. That is not at all the case.

Disciple: They believe that a man can advance only by morality i.e. by remaining moral.

Sri Aurobindo: Nobody denies that. By morality you become more human, but you do not go beyond humanity. Morality has done much good to man, maybe; it has also done much harm.

The question is whether you can rise to something above man by morality. That sort of mental limitation is not conducive to the growth into the Spirit.

Sri Aurobindo: Like the Christians to whom there is no difference between morality and spirituality. For instance, take this fast now announced. It is a Christian idea of atonement for sin. All those other reasons which are given make it rather ridiculous.

Indian culture knew the value of morality, and also its limitations. The Upanishads and the Gita are loud with and full of the idea of going beyond morality. For instance, when the Upanishad says: “he does not need to think whether what he is doing is good or bad” — Sadhu, Asadhu. Such a man attains a consciousness in which there is no need to think about morality because the action proceeds from the Truth.

Sri Aurobindo: It is so easy to make money in life and yet we don’t get any money.

This remark was the result of his perception that the whole institution of Couèism was being commercialised.

Sri Aurobindo: I know how to make money; only, as Couè would say, I have not the “imagination” or as I would say, I have not the “will” to do it. I know the easy methods but I prefer to take the more difficult path. That was the main objection of X to myself. He always said that I was unpractical because I used to upset all his plans that were most likely to succeed.

1. Simple consciousness which is possessed by the upper half of the animal kingdom. A dog is conscious of things around him.

2. Self-consciousness. Man is conscious of himself as a distinct entity apart from all the rest of the universe..... It is as good as certain that no animal can realise himself in that way.

Man can say: “I know it is true” — and also “I know that I know it is true”. Language is the objective side of the phenomenon of which self-consciousness is the subjective.

Sri Aurobindo: I know the Western people won’t leave aside reason in their dealing with the material sciences, but when they come to Yoga or Spiritual experiences they

do not seem to keep their heads; they are like children in these things.

For instance, take Dr. Bucke’s case. It is evident there has been some experience. It must be the case with many other people in Europe. Immediately they break a little out of their brain-mind they begin to generalise without waiting to see quietly what the experiences is about. They do not allow the experience to get settled. If Dr. Bucke had waited and tried to see how what he calls “cosmic consciousness” comes, what are the conditions of its experience, and what it really is, then he would have found that his generalisation that “the cosmic consciousness must come all of a sudden” is not correct.

Then again it is not necessary that it must come to everyone in that form: “a column of fire”!

If he had waited he would have found that his experience had two elements, the mental and the psychic, to which the vision of fire was due. I do not think that Christ had the same experience or even Edward Carpenter.

When I first got the cosmic consciousness — I call it the passive Brahman — I did not fall into unconsciousness of common things; I was fully conscious on the physical plane. It was at Baroda and it did not go away soon, it did not last only a few moments as Bucke lays down. It lasted for months...I could see the Higher Consciousness above the mind and I saw that it was that which was reflected in the mind. The world and all people appeared as in a cinema; all these things appeared very small.

What Bucke and some of the other people get is some sense of the Infinite on the mental plane and they begin to think that it is everything.

His whole book is a generalisation from one experience which lasted only a few seconds. One ought not to rush into print with so little.

The division of consciousness into three forms or types is all right in a rough way. But his statement that man has self-consciousness while the animal has no is not quite true. And his argument is: because animals have no articulate speech and because they don’t know that they exist, therefore they are not self-conscious. He admits that animals have reasoning power. But it is not true that they have no language. They have some sort of intoned sounds which are like the language of the pigmies and also they have a power of wonderful telepathic communication of impulse. So, having no articulate language does not imply absence of self-consciousness. Of course, the animals have no intellectual ideas to convey. But they have self-consciousness.

The cosmic consciousness, as he describes it, seems to be the coming down of Light with the intuitive mind. But that is not the whole level of the Higher Consciousness above the mind. There are other truths which are as real as those of which Dr. Bucke speaks.

He got into that higher state and was evidently in exaltation; there must have been some play of the intuitive mind, and the intellect working at great speed. He himself admits that the experience can last for some hours. What he ought to have done is to say to himself: “Let me see whether it can be made normal.” It is no use having the cosmic consciousness for a few moments in one’s life. And Bucke says that the whole of humanity is going to get it.

If humanity is going to have it, it must be a normal cosmic consciousness. In some cases the experience comes back by itself. One must wait and ask for it and see what it is. In other cases one has to work it out and

see whether it can become normal. But these people are soon satisfied.

Sri Aurobindo brought the book out from his room and putting it on the table started speaking.

Sri Aurobindo: I tried to read the book. But then I found that it was not necessary to read the whole because I have been able to form an idea about it from the illustrations.

The illustrations are of the lowest vital plane as is evident from the forms which they have thrown out and also from the faces of the mediums. They are most diabolical, what the Christians call “devilish”.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not a scientific work. These people, who meddle in these fields of consciousness of which they know nothing, claim to be experts! These forms are created by using the vital force of the mediums themselves. I do not know to what degrading influences these poor mediums are subjecting themselves!

Europe is meddling in these things without knowing what they are. That is the result of a sceptical denial of any higher possibility of spiritual and divine life on the one hand, and a spirit of mere curiosity on the other. If Europe wants something genuine in the spiritual life, it is absolutely necessary for it to throw away all this rubbish.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the vital is always a very dangerous plane to open oneself to. It is that which leads one to

side-tracks in spiritual endeavour — Sadhana. Besides, as the writer himself admits, the evidence does not prove anything beyond the fact that supraphysical planes exist. These vital beings can take the substance from the vital plane and also gather stuff from the minds of those present and create a form. It does not prove that they are the persons they claim to be. Not that disembodied spirits don’t exist, but this way it can’t be proved.

Sri Aurobindo: You can only meddle in this field when you have got some higher power and some real knowledge. Otherwise, you get to it by the wrong end: to get to the vital by the wrong end is the most dangerous thing.

No! If Europe follows this line, it will create a black bar across any descent of the higher Light.

Disciple: Would these phenomena occur if a Yogi — a true Yogi — was present?

Sri Aurobindo: Let anyone who has the true Light be present in these seances and you will see that none of these phenomena will take place. These forces would simply run away.

Scepticism and agnosticism are better than these things. Though they are negative and in opposition they have something which can be turned into a substance of Light. But these forces are positively perverse and in opposition,— they are against the Truth.

No opening must be given to these forces. There is an imposition of ignorance and scepticism which has been introduced or interposed so that the hostile vital world may not break the barrier easily, except in stray cases.

Disciple: But why is there no spiritual opening in Europe? and why do those who are spiritual there not protest against this?

Sri Aurobindo: You mean no spiritual endeavour? It will come in time. In that case these vital forces have to work through the usual psychological opening which the normal man gives: they have to work through desires, impulses etc. But this kind of work in the occult is an effort on the part of the lower vital forces to break the barrier and gain possession of the physical plane. If they could succeed they would retard the whole course of evolution and the destiny of the race. Therefore, throwing the doors of consciousness open to them, as these people do, is the most dangerous thing. Of course, at a certain point, the higher Power would certainly intervene and throw them away.

Disciple: The book claims to reveal the future by showing the forms of what is going to happen.

Sri Aurobindo: The sight, the subtle sight, of forms of the future is not knowledge. It is a limited development which allows one to have some knowledge. But the higher knowledge is different,— in the vital and the mental the knowledge attained is not the same.

Disciple: The kind of spiritism gives one the knowledge of the future; and that attracts men.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary to know the future. It is better that I should have the spiritual consciousness than know the future.

Sri Aurobindo: The scientific method is fruitless as applied to these occult subjects or even to life. Dr. J. C. Bose has shown that there is a nervous response in the plants. But nervous response is not vital force. It does not prove the existence of vital force. Vital force is like a pianist who is invisible. You can only see the mechanism of the piano and the playing but not the player.

Also you should not apply the standards which are valid in a higher field to a field of action below. You falsify the knowledge if you do that. It is like trying to prove the existence of God or of the Spirit, by physical means. One can’t prove it because it is not a physical thing.

This book only says, “There are some things supra-physical”. That is all right. But it does not prove what the author claims.

Sri Aurobindo: It would only result in bringing those lower forces here. Europe at least is protected by a certain stolidity of mind. The Europeans can develop clairvoyance — it is already there. One can develop such faculties without calling in the aid of these perverse spirits. What is needed is a change in the angle of vision towards spiritualism. Real spiritualism is not ideas about the Spirit or mentalised spiritual knowledge. Also men must lessen their curiosity in these subjects.

Disciple: In explaining life or personality modern science tries to explain everything by the external, i.e., by heredity, by the gland, the nerve etc.

Sri Aurobindo: In these psychological fields I must study myself and find out the truth. But if science says that everything is glands and nerves etc. then I have to do nothing. I admit glands may have something to say in the matter of life or personality but I say it is very minute. About reaction in the physical my experience is that one has to make the cells conscious,— they again forget and become unconscious, one has to make them conscious time and again.

There was a discussion about Osserwiceki’s book dealing with clairvoyance, telekinesis, seeing different colours, ectoplasmic substance etc.

Sri Aurobindo: Is he conscious of how and what he is doing, that is the question. If he is not conscious then the action must be mediumistic.

Disciple: How is he able to move an object while remaining at a distance? And how is he able to leave his physical body and with his vital body make himself felt somewhere else?

Sri Aurobindo: Tremendous vital force is necessary to move an object at a distance.

The Mother had such an experience in Algeria when she was there. She left her body and made herself felt to her friends in Paris where she signed her name and even moved an object. At another time she moved up and down a train in her vital being and saw everything.

The Slavs as a race are psychically more sensitive but generally they do not control these occult forces. The Jews, having a long-standing tradition about these powers, seem to know the way of mastering them.

Théon, the Mother’s first teacher, had great powers and knew how to use them. Sometimes these powers are gifts.

When one leaves the physical being and goes into the vital world he must know how to protect himself or someone must protect him.

Sri Aurobindo: The vital plane has its own time and space. There is a relation between the physical and the vital planes. There is an Infinite with extension and an Infinite without extension. One creates space and time and the other is caitanya ghana,— condensed or self-gathered Infinite.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally the vital being does not get fatigued, if you can draw the force from the Universal vital or from Above.

Disciple: They say that certain substances like incense, and certain sounds like that of a conch, and objects like a sword can prevent the Asuric forces from acting.

Sri Aurobindo: All these are not effective in themselves, but they produce an influence by the power you put into them. In the case of incense, by the power of Agni a psychic influence is produced which these vital beings do not like, but a powerful Asura would not be influenced by sound.

Disciple: According to Einstein’s theory, although there is a formed independent Reality, it is quite different from what we know about it. Observed Matter and the laws of the physical sciences exist only by our mind. It is all a working in a circle. Our mind defines Matter in order to deal with what exists; it observes conservation of Matter, but that is because the mind is such that in order to observe Reality it must posit conservation first. Time and Space also, in the new Physics, seem to be our mind’s formations of something which is not divisible or separable into time and space.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by mind? You try to appropriate mind to yourself. But really there is no

my mind or your mind — but mind or rather movement of mind. Mind is universal, even the animal has got it. We can only speak of human mind which is a particular organisation of the general principle of Mind. One can speak of one’s own mind for the sake of convenience, i.e. for practical purposes.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no fundamental difference. The difference is in detail, in the development, evolution and organisation offerees. For instance, I have, by virtue of my past evolution, developed and organised certain forces in me, but the principle is the same.

The human mind in dealing with the universe has to deal with certain relations of objects and rely upon the senses and other instruments and therefore it cannot be sure of what it receives of the universe and the truth of the reality that corresponds to it. This is so because, first of all, the instruments, that is, the senses are imperfect. Even his reason and the will to know do not give man the knowledge of the Truth; Reason is mainly useful for practical purposes because it enables man to deal with universal facts as they are organised now. That was the view which Bergson took: “Reason”, he said, “is an instrument of action, not of knowledge.” It is organised knowledge directed to action. When you have taken up a position intuitively, reason comes in afterwards and supplies you with the chain of justification.

Take for consideration a law: what do you mean by a law? It means that under certain conditions the same movement of forces always recurs. It depends on the human mind,— the condition of mental consciousness. But suppose the consciousness changes, then the law also is bound to change and it would be seen from quite a different position. So, all the laws are relative. That

seems to be the truth, from our point of view, behind Einstein’s theory.

All these ideas about the universe are based on the assumption that the Infinite can organise a universe only on these particular lines with which mankind is at present familiar. But that is purely an assumption.

Disciple: There is a new standpoint reached by Einstein’s theory that the laws of the physical universe are related to the law of numbers and as this law seems absolute to our mind, the laws of the physical world are also absolute. They cannot be otherwise. If the law of number is different in another universe, or on another plane, then the laws of that world would be different.

It was thought once that laws are restrictions placed by Nature upon infinite possibilities; e.g. a stone has to fall down in a straight line only, it could not take any other course. But now it is seen that this idea of restriction is an imposition from our mind. There is no such thing.

Sri Aurobindo: If your mind is in search of the Absolute then it is a vain search. First of all, it is a question whether there is any reality corresponding to what the mere mind formulates as the Absolute.

Secondly, even if such an Absolute or Reality exists it is doubtful how you are going to reach it.

Thirdly, even if you could realise it, I don’t think it would matter very much.

There are, beyond mind, three Absolutes — the Ananda, the Chit — Tapas, that is, the Consciousness and Power aspect, and the Sat [the Being]. These three really are Absolute, Infinite and One.

But when you begin to deal with the movements of Ananda, movements of consciousness and force in manifestation [here] then you have to distinguish and differentiate between high and low, true and false movements.

Now with regard to the law of numbers it merely states the organisation of the physical part of the universe and even there it gives knowledge of only a part. But, there is not merely the quantitative law of formation, but also a qualitative law which is more important than the quantitative. These laws of Nature you call absolute. But suppose I bring the yogic force into play and am able to overcome the law of gravitation, that is, bring about levitation, then is it not breaking the absolute law?

Disciple: But then another force, quite different from the purely physical, enters into play. If the laws of the physical are not dependable then what is the use of this mental knowledge?

Sri Aurobindo: It is very useful. It is even necessary. It enables man to deal with physical facts and establishes his control over physical phenomena.

Disciple: But that control is not perfect. Another question is: Whether the scientists would come to believe or accept that the whole truth cannot be attained by mind, or would they turn sceptics like the positivists? Could they come to believe in the possibility of higher Knowledge by mysticism?

Sri Aurobindo: Never mind what they accept or don’t accept, but the control which science gives is a real control. The knowledge science gives, as I said, is not only useful but is even necessary. The main concern of the scientist is with physical phenomena,— he observes them, he studies the conditions, makes experiments and then deduces the laws.

Sri Aurobindo: I already spoke one day about occultism which deals with the knowledge of the forces of those planes and the way of mastering them.

Even in yoga we have to do the same. We have to find out the right Dharma, the right way of functioning, of movement of forces. Not merely the law which is mechanical, but the Dharma of the movement of forces. An ordinary law merely means an equilibrium established by Nature; it means a balance of forces. It is merely a groove in which Nature is accustomed to work in order to produce certain results. But, if you change the consciousness, then the groove also is bound to change. For instance, I observe the forces on the vital plane, I see what they are, and what they intend. If they are hostile they attack me. Then I have to find out how they shall not attack me.

I put forth some force and see how they react; I have also to see how they would react if I put forth the force in a different way.

Even in knowing physical phenomena, the Yogi’s way of knowing is different from that of the scientist. For instance, when I light a match I do not know the chemical composition of the match, and how it burns when struck. But I feel and know beforehand whether it will light or not, or whether it will do the work intended of it, and that is enough for me. I know it because I am in contact with the force that is in it, the Sat and the Chit in movement there.

The Yogi’s way of dealing with these physical forces is also different from that of the scientist. Take, for instance, the fire that broke out in Tokyo. What the scientist would do is to multiply means and organise devices to prevent and put out the fire. What the Yogi would do in the same case is that he would feel the Spirit of fire approaching and, putting forth his force, he would be able to prevent the fire from breaking out in his vicinity.

Disciple: There are some people who claim, or pretend, to know the result of a lottery. Cagliostro was such a person, and tradition says that his claim was valid. Is it done by the same way of knowing as in the case of the match box?

Disciple: But I know of cases where the man used to put somebody into a clairvoyant state by hypnotism and then know the number that was going to succeed in a speculation. But whenever he had a desire to gain for himself he always failed.

Sri Aurobindo: That was bound to influence the working of forces, because he was not passive. If you remain passive, supposing that you are open to the plane in question, you could get the right number. It is not a moral question, it is a question of disturbing the proper working of a process.

Disciple: Some of the great Yogis while dealing with these lower forces feel that they have come down from their spiritual height and have lost some ground. Why do they feel like that?

Sri Aurobindo: Generally the Yogis of the traditional school wanted to get away from Nature into a kind of Absolute, cither of Sat or of Chit or of Ananda. So long as they remained in that experience they felt they were in a high spiritual condition. But they hardly cared to organise anything on the lower planes. So whenever they had to deal with the forces of Nature they had to come down and meet them on the same level. As they came down they felt they had lost their high spiritual condition.

Disciple: It was probably because of this that they were against the use of spiritual power.

Sri Aurobindo: In your Yoga there are two movements of Nature: one is the movement of light and knowledge and the other is the movement of force or will. Generally, it is the movement of knowledge that comes first and is

more perfect than the movement of force and action. In the beginning these two movements are separate, and in fact, the will is more effective when the knowledge is shut out.

Sri Aurobindo: I may have the correct knowledge that an accident will happen, but I may not have the power to prevent it from happening.

As one develops the yogic life these two movements approach each other and in the Supermind they are two aspects of the same Truth. The light of knowledge carries in it effective power and the will becomes more and more enlightened in its action. That is why we speak of more and more luminous action and more and more effective knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo: In order to bring him down to the lower level, so as to prevent him from ascending to the higher levels of consciousness and organising anything there. When I go up in consciousness and try to organise something above, these forces come and attack me and I have to come down and meet them. There is some kind of organisation of the higher Power here in the lower nature with which I have to meet them. For instance, it is possible to prevent people from getting ill, and this organisation is workable in practice and sufficient for us to go on with. But it is not what has got to be done, it is not the highest nor the perfect movement.

It is well known that once you come down in consciousness you find it difficult to go up again. There are two ways of meeting these attacks of the lower forces: (1) either you have to remain perfectly calm and allow the higher Power to protect you if it likes, or, (2) you have to come down and fight them with your forces.

Disciple: Is it not true that generally knowledge comes to the Sadhaka before power?

Disciple: Even the forces and their attacks are, perhaps, like the working of the left hand of God; it helps the Yogi to rise higher. With one hand He holds him up and with the other gives him a slap.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is so. Even what are called hostile forces have to be known and seen as the working of God. If you see what is pushing them from behind you find it is not the hostile force but the divine Power.

But it is very dangerous to accept everything as the working of the Divine, saying, “All is the working of God”, like K who says evil and good are both equal. Everything is, in the last analysis, the working of the Divine, but you have not therefore to accept everything. It may not matter very much so long as you are on the mental plane, but on the vital plane if you accept everything as the working of the Divine you are sure to fall. It is a very dangerous movement because the Sadhaka may justify the play of lower impulses in him on the ground that they have a purpose to serve.

When one knows the hostile forces also as the working of the Divine, the left hand of God, then the movement of exhaustion of these forces is very quick.

Disciple: Was the principle of Vama Marga of Tantra similar to this idea of conquering hostile forces by taking them as the movement of the Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: I have no direct knowledge of the Tantric Sadhana. But most probably the Tantrics tried to apply the truth that they saw on some other plane to the physical plane and in doing so nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand fell.

Disciple: It is not that the movement of meeting the lower forces with one’s own power is comparatively inferior?

The higher movement would be that the Truth must act direct from Above. Is it not true that the Power becomes more and more impersonal?

Sri Aurobindo: There is no question of Personal or Impersonal in the action of the Truth. It may act through the individual, that is, use him as the channel. Then it may seem Personal. It may even seem to work for what to others would appear personal ends, or for the benefit of an individual. It does not matter so long as it is the Truth that acts.

Disciple: A difficulty is with regard to time and space: they are always taken together as if they were inseparable, but space is reversible for man while time is not.

Sri Aurobindo: Because time is not a physical entity, it is supra-physical. It is made of subtle elements and so you can go back only in the subtle way.

Disciple: Space is three-dimensional. The question is: cannot time have two dimensions, since time for us is in a line?

Sri Aurobindo: Time represents itself to us as movement or rather succession; it is dynamic.

Sri Aurobindo: You can say that on a plane higher than the mind time becomes static,— that the past, present and future appear in a line (without a break) and are static.

Sri Aurobindo: 8:30 p.m. (laughter); I have never bothered myself with these mental definitions. What difference is it going to make to you if you know the definition?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? How is it that you occupy space? You have a consciousness!

Sri Aurobindo: Why should it be always material? When you feel angry, for instance, you also get a disturbance in the physical nerves. It occupies space.

Disciple: But that is not my consciousness; it is only the reaction of anger, not myself.

Sri Aurobindo: That is because it does not suit your argument! How do you know what is your consciousness? What do you understand by consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: That is not your consciousness,— that is the result of your consciousness. Do you think consciousness is a mere abstraction so that it exists nowhere?

In a way, you can say that everything exists in consciousness, even space etc. In fact, everything exists in consciousness and it exists nowhere outside of it. Then you come to Shankara’s position: everything, therefore, is Maya — illusion. That is the most logical conclusion unless you admit, like the materialists, that everything comes from matter.

Sri Aurobindo: What have you to do with conventions? You have to see the Truth, never mind what people

believe. You will find that thought, feeling, etc. take place in a certain space which, of course, is not physical space. It is something like the ether which pervades everything.

The question may be asked: how far does space extend? You go from earth to the interstellar region, and then? Do you think there is no other kind of space? To my mind space is an extension of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you mean to say that when I get the experience of wide, extended consciousness, my consciousness becomes material?

Sri Aurobindo: How do you see? Only through your mind, is it not? You can only say that these things — like Matter etc. — represent themselves in this way to the human mind. And what is time, when you come to deal with subtler things? It is not a mere abstraction; it is a force, you can say it is the action of a force. It acts and produces effects by itself without any other factor.

Time, you can say, is consciousness in action working in Eternity and space is consciousness as being in self-extension.

Sri Aurobindo: They represent themselves so to the vital being and it is easy to mistake them for true gods, because the vital being in man lends itself easily to such deceptions. The second reason is that they satisfy, or promise to satisfy, desires of the vital being of man, or if there is vanity they pander to it.

Disciple: In that case it seems that many of the gods worshipped by men are vital gods.

Sri Aurobindo: I think so; many of the people who get possessed by Kali and such other gods are only possessed by these vital beings and much of the worship offered to them in the temples goes to these vital beings.

Sri Aurobindo: Not knowingly. That is to say, they have no hiṃsā-vṛtti — harming impulse. But if a man goes and butts against the gods then he knocks his head. But no god harms intentionally. It is you who go to get your head broken. It is your folly and stupidity which is responsible for the knocks.

Sri Aurobindo: Not in the human, sentimental way. They go on doing their work and if man becomes happy or unhappy, or rich, or poor — they do not care. Do you think that if the Gods were running after human happiness there would be so much misery left in the world? The gods are merciful because the Divine is merciful.

Sri Aurobindo: You think the gods are weaker than the devils and they can’t destroy the devils? They are merciful and good because God is merciful and good but it does not mean they have no power. They simply go on doing their work with their eyes on the Eternal Law of Truth. To them it is that which matters and nothing else.

Sri Aurobindo: Not “busy” in the human sense. They are eternally engaged in doing their work,— but not busy.

That is to say, there is no force of attraction exerted between objects. He says that what we call gravitation is due to curvature of space.

Disciple: He says that Euclidian geometry is not applicable to the material world. That is to say, space is not flat, a three-dimensional analogue of a two-dimensional flat surface. Euclidian figures like the square and solids and straight lines are abstract, not real or actual. He also says that material space is “boundless but not infinite”.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know? Perhaps it is not space that is limited but over capacity to measure space that is limited. Besides, how can you say that space is limited to Matter? There is a non-material space beyond this material universe. A being can leave behind our material space.

Disciple: Einstein began his contribution by proving that simultaneity of events, constancy of mass and length etc. are all relative and not absolute. If the same length is measured from a body moving with great velocity at a distance the length would change. Besides, he showed that in a system of reference if the whole frame of reference moves uniformly then no measurement within the system can give you the proof of the uniform motion.

He has also shown that time is an indispensable factor in the measurement of dimensions of an object.

Sri Aurobindo: Time is not an indispensable factor of dimension. Movement is absolutely necessary to feel time. When an object is stationary the consideration of time does not enter in measuring the dimensions unless you move it to some other point. Really speaking, one has to know space as the extension of being and time as an extension of energy.

Disciple: According to science everything is moving. Earth is going round the Sun and revolving on its axis.

If we tap on the same place twice Einstein would say we have not tapped on the same place, for the earth has moved 18 miles per second in the meantime.

Sri Aurobindo: But the taps do not change the dimensions of the board! only, you can say that a consideration of time is necessary to complete your measurements of space.

Disciple: Einstein has introduced a fourth dimension of time, in addition to length, breadth, and height; their combination he calls the time-space continuum. It can be conceived as a cylinder over which a spiral is wound.

Sri Aurobindo: It is only a phrase! Time cannot be relegated to the position of a mere dimension of space, it is independent in its nature; Time and space may be called the fundamental dual dimensions of the Brahman.

Disciple: Ouspensky has an idea in his Tertium Organum that our three-dimensional world is a projection from a subtler fourth-dimension which is suprasensual but real. He means to say that to each solid form we see here there corresponds a subtler form of it which is in the fourth dimension.

Sri Aurobindo: That is perfectly true, the cube would not be held together and therefore would not be a solid if something in the subtle dimension did not maintain it. Only, it is not visible to the physical eye but can be seen with the subtle eye.

Disciple: Sir Arthur Eddington in his Gifford Lectures (1934) says that science began with the aim of reducing the complexity of the material world to a great simplicity. But now, it seems, science has not been able to keep its promise and no model of the material universe is possible. A good deal of mathematics and specialisation is necessary now to understand what science says about the material world. Eddington says that the table on which he is writing is not merely a piece of wood. Scientifically

speaking, it is a conglomeration of electrical particles, called Electrons, moving at a very great velocity, and even though the particles are moving, his hands can rest on the surface and not go through.

He has also argued against the scientists who insist that the so-called objective view is the only view that is permissible or intended. The rainbow is not intended only to give man the knowledge, or experience, of the difference in the wave-lengths of light. The poet is equally entitled to his experience when he says, “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky”.

So also a “ripple” in water is not meant only to give man the knowledge of the pressure of the air, and the force of surface — tension.

Sri Aurobindo: Validity of human knowledge is not dependent on physical science alone. Physical science is only one side, of knowledge. The poet’s and the mystic’s and the artist’s experience have equal validity.

Disciple: Eddington argues that even in so-called objective scientific knowledge it is mind that is asked to judge ultimately. 8 x 4 is 32 and not 23, why?

Sri Aurobindo: It is by an intuition and repetition of experience and not merely by reason that man finds that one is right and the other wrong.

Now even the scientists have been forced to admit that their conclusions are not all based on reason. Their formulas have become like magic formulas.

Disciple: N. was puzzled about time and space because it is not clear whether time and space are properties on matter.

Sri Aurobindo: Time and space can’t be properties of matter, at least time is not material. Space and time are the extensions of the Brahman. For instance, you feel when you go deep in meditation that there is an inner space,— cidakasa, which extends to infinity, and our material space is only a result of it. So time also is extension of Brahman in movement.

You can see that time and space both are not the same for man every time. When your mind travels from Calcutta to London it is not in the material space and not in the time that you feel with the outer mind. It is in the mind itself that you move.

Space also is a movement of the Brahman inasmuch as it is an extension, but there is a difference as far as time is concerned.

Disciple: We are conscious of the movement of Brahman as time because we live from moment to moment and We can feel time only by events. So also the world is an extension.

Sri Aurobindo: In that way everything is an extension — expression, projection, manifestation,— of the Brahman. It is only a way of saying.

Sri Aurobindo: Who says it? It depends upon the point of view and state of consciousness from which you say it; i.e. whether one says it only intellectually, or from an experience.

Disciple: Time may not exist in a consciousness where the universe does not exist.

Disciple: The scientists define gravitation as only a curvature of space — and, as we know matter only by weight, matter is a curvature of space.

If you wound your watch and unwound it — there would be a difference in the weight? (laughter)

Disciple: According to science there is no empty space anywhere, that is to say, there is no emptiness in space. There are two schools of physicists: Some believe that there is what they call “cosmic dust” in all space. Others say that the ray of light being material can pass through nothing — there is no necessity to imagine anything between.

Sri Aurobindo: “Nothing” means what? Does it mean non-existence, or nothing that we can, or do, sense? If you say it is non-existence then nothing can pass through it, you empty a tube or a vessel of the air or gas it contains and say it is a vacuum. But how do you know there is nothing in it?

Sri Aurobindo: Why should you assume that everything must offer resistance? If “nothing” means non-existence then if anything enters non-existence it becomes non-existence. If you enter non-existence you cease to be. A ray can arrive only at nowhere through nothing.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not merely occult knowledge but occult knowledge and common sense.

Sri Aurobindo: The question remains: either it is a conception

or any entity. If it is a conception only, then your observations can also be only conceptions, that is to say, they happen in you only. Then you come to Mayavada: nothing but yon exist.

Sri Aurobindo: What is the meaning of space being curved? Einstein speaks of curvature of space round the Sun and when a body gets near it it goes down the curve. But the question is: what is that curve and in what does it exist?

For instance, some say the universe is expanding. In what? There must be something in which it is expanding. And why is a ray of light deflected in the sun’s neighbourhood? You say: because there is a curve. But why is there a curve? And in what is that curve?

And then, what is expanding? It it Matter? You will say: No. Then Energy? You say: yes. But the energy is expanding into what? you say space is bent: the question is: is matter bent or space?

Disciple: According to the quantum theory it is a particle which is matter and energy at the same time.

Sri Aurobindo: If you say that matter is finite then there must be some medium which supports matter and which is infinite. You say matter has weight,— what is weight?

Disciple: Some of the scientists say that the sun is losing weight at a certain rate and the time when it will be exhausted is calculated!

Disciple: What else can science do? It must take the data and make a hypothesis.

ii. Then you should draw the right inference. The difficulty is that you can never be sure of having all the data for any phenomenon.

Disciple: There are so many calculations: earth’s age, the rate of the expanding universe, the sun’s birth, the age of the sun etc.

Sri Aurobindo: I sympathise with Shaw who says: “they don’t know what it really is.” Something escapes from like the fish from the fisherman’s net.

There are many persons who believe that “Yoga” means the Raja-Yoga of Patanjali. His sutras are well known. It is a scientific method which resorts to:

1. Physico-vital processes depending on Pranayama and Asanas taken from Hatha Yoga.

2. Psycho-vital and psycho-mental processes in a gradually rising series: patyahara, dhyāna, dhāraṇā. and samādhi. Even though the Gita gave currency to quite a different idea of Yoga and even of Samadhi, the popular mind in India has believed that Yoga means Raja-Yoga, in most cases at least. It is apparent that Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is quite different from the Raja-Yoga of Patanjali. It does not take the mental consciousness and its condition as the constant point of reference; for, its aim is not to secure a mental state which might reflect the Infinite but to rise above the mind. Besides, it adds the process of Descent of the Supramental consciousness,

into human nature which necessitates a complete transformation of the ignorant human nature into the divine: it transforms the áparā prakṛti into the parā.

Sri Aurobindo: The aim of Patanjali was to rise to a higher consciousness. He proposed to do it by replacing the general Rajasic movements of nature by the Sattwic There was no idea of practising morality in it, or of ethics. Besides, Yama and Niyama were never the aim of his efforts; the aim was to rise above the ordinary consciousness and even his idea of Samyama and Nigraha was not dictated by morality. He, wanted to gather power for a spiritual purpose and so he discouraged the spending away of forces in the ordinary way.

Dr. R. came today and in course of his talk he said: “Medicines, after all, are not of much value. It is something else that effects the cure”. (Then Dr. R. went away)

Sri Aurobindo: A doctor known to the Mother used to say that it is the doctor that heals, not the medicines. It is chiefly the healing power that works; if it is there then medicines lend their properties to the healing power.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Even now in some French Universities like Montpèlier, I hear, they admit the working of this vital force. They seem to have preserved the old tradition coming down from their contact with Spain; Spain got it from Asia when it came under the Arab influence.

Sri Aurobindo: At one time the physical sciences claimed to explain everything. But now they seem to realise that science cannot explain everything. So, they turn round and say: “It is not our business to explain.”

Disciple: They have come to admit that the law of causation which had no exception is, now, not without exception. In certain cases the cause cannot be determined because in trying to determine the cause one would be obliged to meddle with the process. This is called indeterminism.

Disciple: There are some scientists who are trying to prove the existence of spiritual and supra-physical truths by science.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a futile effort. You cannot found metaphysics on science. The whole basis of your thought will tumble every time science changes.

Disciple: Can it not be said that there is something in philosophy which corresponds to the truth of science?

Sri Aurobindo: No; all you can say is that certain conclusions of metaphysics agree and correspond to certain conclusions of science.

Disciple: The continental scientists have refused to build a philosophy of science. They say that it is not their business to explain, but to lay bare the process. Eddington in his Gifford Lectures (1934) said that ultimately it is the human mind, the subjective element, which accepts one conclusion out of a number of possible conclusions. Scientific conclusion does not always depend upon objective reality but upon subjective interpretation. For example, 8 x 2 is equal to 16 and not 61 — it is the mind that accepts this truth.

Sri Aurobindo: In this case it is the accumulated experience or, you may say, invariable experience, that gives the sense of certainty.

Disciple: Scientists study the rainbow and find that it is caused by the difference in the wavelengths of light and they might say that is the reality of the rainbow. But when the poet exclaims: “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky” we have no right to say that the knowledge or experience of the scientist is right and that of the poet wrong.

Sri Aurobindo: In fact, the rainbow exists for neither. Only the scientist gets excited over the process, while the poet is excited over the result of the process.

Disciple: It is a very encyclopaedic work. But there emerge a few main ideas: e.g. Spengler says that Time is not a neutral entity, it has got a direction, a tendency; — something like a tension. It tends to produce certain events. It points to a destiny, to something towards which the sum of forces seems to lead inevitably.

On the data of human history he believes that there have been cycles in the life of the human race when cultures have arisen, reached a zenith and then declined. From a study of these it is possible to predict the decline of human cultures. European culture at present is full of these symptoms of decline and therefore it is bound to decline. The signs of this decline are the rise of big cities, impoverishment of the countryside, capitalism etc.

He says that to classify history as Primitive, Mediaeval and Modern is not correct. We must study universal history and that too impersonally. The mathematical discoveries that are seen in a particular culture are organically connected with that culture. The Greeks, for instance, could never have arrived at the conception of the “series” — regularly increasing or decreasing numbers leading to infinite number. The “series — idea” is only possible in modern culture.

He even maintains that even if you grant that Napoleon’s rise could have been prevented by some causes, still the results that came as a consequence of Napoleon’s career would have followed inevitably because they were destined.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t quite understand. Big cities have always existed. And even granting that there is destiny, why could it not be changed? He says about Napoleon that the results of his rise would have followed inevitably. It is a very debatable proposition I believe the results would have materially varied. If Napoleon had not come at that time the European powers would have crushed the French Democracy. Napoleon stabilised the revolution, so that the world got he ideal of democracy. But if he had not been there it would have been delayed by two or three centuries, perhaps.

As to destiny, what do you mean by destiny? It is a word and men are easily deceived by words. Is destiny a working of inert, blind, material forces? In that case, there is no room for choice, you have to end by accepting Shankara’s Mayavada, or else rank materialism.

But if you mean by destiny that there is a will at work in the universe then a choice in action becomes possible.

And when he speaks of cycles there is some truth in the idea, but it is not possible to make a rigid rule about the recurrence of the cycles. These cycles are plastic and need not be all of the same duration. In the Aryan Path Mr. Morris has written an article full of study of facts and historical data in which he tries to show that human history has always run in a cycle of five hundred years. He even believes that there are Mahatmas who manage this world.

I believe the extension of mathematical numbers to infinity was well known in India long long ago.

(After a long pause) No! In a philosopher it is not

the process of reasoning that is important; for he blinds himself to everything else in order to arrive at his conclusion. Therefore, what you have to do is to take his conclusions and in considering them you should accept the essentials and not the words, or the unessentials. For instance, there is some truth in Spengler’s idea of destiny, as also in his idea of cycles of human history. All the rest of what he says is not material to us.

What is destiny? Evidently, it can’t be the will of the individual. Then you have to accept that it is the working out of a cosmic will. Then the question is whether the cosmic will is free or is bound? If it is free it is no longer a blind determinism and even when you find there is no “progress”, yet that will is working itself out in evolution.

If on the other hand you accept that the cosmic will is bound then the question is “bound by whom?” and “by what?”

About the idea of the cycle: it means that there is a curve in the movement of Nature that seems to repeat itself. But that too is not to be taken too rigidly. It is something that answers the need of evolution and can vary.

Disciple: Probably something in the man’s mind has already accepted the conclusions unknown to the man and it is by his reasoning that he sets them out.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, perhaps something unknown to the surface-consciousness. There, again, the human ego comes in. It is so limited that it thinks that the contribution it brings to human thought is the only truth, and all others that differ or conflict with it are false.

We can turn round and say that he was destined to think as he thought and thus make his contribution to human progress. But it is easy to see that the process of evolution is universal and that human evolution cannot

be bound down to a set of ideas of philosophy or rules of practice. No epoch, no individual, no group has the monopoly of truth. It is the same with the religions also.

Disciple: I don’t think such a wide view is possible unless man reaches the universal mind.

Disciple: Wells speaks of something similar, I believe, when he presses that all knowledge must now become “human”.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a different matter. He means “internationalism”. All sciences are international and most of the literature now a days tends to be international. But what does Spengler say about the future after the decline of Europe?

Disciple: He dismisses China and India as countries whose cultures are useless now.

Disciple: No, the Americans are gone with the Europeans! So we have only the Africans to save us!

Disciple: It is very curious that Spengler misses the fact that there can be national resurgence and reawakening.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, take, for instance, China. China has cities from most ancient times. It is a peculiar race always disturbed and always the same! If you study Chinese history one thousand years back, you will find they were in disturbance and yet they had their culture. The Tartar king who tried to destroy their culture by burning their books did not succeed. I would not be surprised

if, after the present turmoil, two thousand years hence you find them what they are today. That is the character of the race.

When you follow the course of history you may find that there is a certain destiny which represents the sum of physical forces; that is one destiny. And you find that when that tends to go round and round in an infinite circuit then there is a tendency which seems inevitable in movement.

But the question is: are physical forces the only determinants of destiny? Or, is there anything else? Is there something more than the physical that can intervene and influence the course of the movement?

We find that there have been such inrushes of forces in history and the action of such an inrush has been to change the destiny indicated by the physical forces; it has even changed the course of human history. As an example, take the rise of the Arabs; a small uncivilized race, living in an and desert, suddenly rises up and in fifty years spreads from Spain to Asia and completely changes the course of history. That is an inrush of forces.

Disciple: There are thinkers — among them Shaw and Emerson — who believe that man has not made substantial progress in his powers of reasoning since the Greeks.

Sri Aurobindo: It is quite true. Of course, you have today a vaster field and more ample material than the Greeks had: but in the handling of it the present-day mind is not superior to the Greek mind in its handling of its limited material.

Disciple: Writing about Plato, Emerson says that he is the epitome of the European mind for the last 2000 years.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true; — the European mind got everything and owes everything to the Greeks. Every branch of knowledge in which human curiosity could be interested has been given to Europe by the Greeks.

The Roman could fight and legislate, he could keep the states together, but he made the Greek think for him. Of course, the Greeks also could fight but not always so well. The Roman thinkers, Cicero, Seneca, Horace, all owe their philosophy to the Greeks.

That, again, is another illustration of what I was speaking of as the inrush of forces. Consider a small race like the Greeks living on the small projecting tongue of land: this race was able to build up a culture that has given everything essential to your modern European culture and that in a span of 200 to 300 years only!

Sri Aurobindo: They had the sense of beauty The one thing that modern Europe has not assimilated from the Greeks is the sense of beauty. One can’t say the modern European culture is beautiful.

The same can be said of ancient India, it had beauty, much of which it has since lost. And now we are fast losing more and more of it under the European influence.

It is true that the Greeks did not create everything, they received many elements from Egypt, Crete and Asia.

And the set-back to the human mind in Europe is amazing. As I said, no one set of ideas can monopolise Truth. From that point of view all these efforts of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin to confine the human mind in a narrow circle of ideas are so absurd!

We had thought, during the last years of the 19th century, that the human mind had reached a certain level of intelligence and that it would have to be satisfied before any idea could find acceptance. But it seems one can’t rely on it. We find Nazi-ideas being accepted; fifty years back it would have been impossible to predict their acceptance. Then again, the intellectuals have gone down almost without fighting. The ease with which

even the best intellectuals accept psycho-analysis and Freud’s ideas is surprising.

Disciple: Some of the intellectuals even preach the Nazi gospel. If psycho-analysis is a science many who believe in it do not see that the subconscient or the inconscient has no scientific foundation. Now they seem to believe anything that is uncommon.

Sri Aurobindo: These Nazi-ideas are infra-rational; they are not at all rational. That is why they call them inspirations, and they turn everything into falsehood. The infra-rational also has a truth; you can’t know the world unless you know the infra-rational, it is necessary for perfect understanding.

Disciple: You mean by the infra-rational all that man has inherited from the animal?

Sri Aurobindo: Man has been abusing the animal for nothing. The infra-rational is not merely the animal,— the Pashu, it includes the Rakshasa and the Asura, the Titan.

Man has been always speaking of the animal in a superior way. But take for instance, the dog. Faithfulness and love are quite universal among dogs. But even when those qualities are found in some men you can’t say the same of mankind.

Disciple: A friend told me that he was surprised to find that the cow in India is so mild and docile. In England, it seems, it attacks men.

Sri Aurobindo: Most animals kill only for food, there are very few animals that are ferocious. There was a variety of maneless lions in America that would have been friendly to man. Of course, it wanted to live and therefore used to kill animals. But the Americans have been killing it,— they have nearly exterminated it.

In Africa they had to legislate to prevent extermination of some animals.

So, you can’t say that man kills when he is compelled.

This is not to say that man has not made progress. It is true that the philosopher of today is not superior to Plato but there are many who can philosophise today. Also there are many more today who can understand philosophy than in the times of Plato.

Sri Aurobindo: Even after the war is finished the Germans might present a difficulty of making it last. They easily allow their instincts to express themselves.

Disciple: Spengler even maintains that instinct is superior to culture and civilization. When a culture culminates in a civilization, its decline is begun. In the last phase of a civilization the village will be depopulated, all men will be drawn to the cities; all the cities over the world will be similar; life will be organised on mechanical principles, money will rule supreme. Then the instinct of man will assert itself and culture will start again.

Sri Aurobindo: Then it comes to the failure of the race; that there is no higher possibility for mankind. But then, how does he explain the rise of man? If man has come from the lower condition of life to his present state it is necessary that either he must make the progress necessary, or he must be replaced by a higher species than man.

A long quotation from Ends and Means was read out to Sri Aurobindo. He did not seem impressed. Then the following passage was read:

“More books have been written about Napoleon than about any other human being. The fact is deeply and alarmingly significant. Duces and Fuehrers will cease to plague the world only when the majority of its inhabitants regard such adventurers with the same disgust as they now bestow on swindlers and pimps. So long as men worship Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them {{0}}miserable.”[[P. 99]]

Sri Aurobindo: That is mere moralising. If Napoleon and Caesar are not to be admired then it means that human capacity and attainment are not to be admired. They are not to be admired because they were successful; plenty of successful people are not admired. Caesar is admired because it was he who founded the greatness of imperial Rome which is one of the greatest periods of human civilization; and Napoleon because he was a great organiser who stabilised the Revolution. He organised France and through France Europe. Are not his immense powers and abilities great?

Disciple: I suppose men admire them because they find in them the realisation of their own potential greatness.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course. Huxley speaks of Caesar and Napoleon as if they were the first dictators the world had ever seen. In fact, dictatorship is as old as the world. Whenever the times have required him the dictator has come in answer to the necessity. When there is a confusion and muddle in the affairs of men or nations the dictator has come, set things right and pulled out the race from it. He will have to take all the dictators in one line for condemnation,

e.g., Kemal (a different type from Hitler), Pilsudski, Stalin and the kings of the Balkan states. Even Mahatma Gandhi is a type of dictator.

Sri Aurobindo: He finds fault with the Jacobins, but I think Laski is right in saying that they saved the Republic. If the Jacobins had not taken power into their hands the result would have been that the Germans would have marched to Paris and restored the monarchy. It is because of the Jacobins that the Bourbons even when they came back had to accept the constitution. All the kings in Europe were obliged, more or less, to accept the principle of democracy and become constitutional monarchs.

It is true that in Napoleon’s time the Assembly was only a shadow, but the full republic, though delayed for a time, was already established, because politics is only a show at the top. The real changes that matter are the changes that come into society. From that point of view, the social changes introduced by Napoleon have continued to this day without any material alteration. The equality of all men before the law was realised then for the first time. His Code bridged the gulf between the extremely poor and the rich. It is now very natural, but it was revolutionary when it was introduced. It may not be democracy governed by the mass, but it is democracy governed by the middleclass,— the bourgeoisie...

Sri Aurobindo: Huxley writes as if the alternative was between war — that is, military violence — and a nonviolent peaceful development. But things are never like

that; they do not move in a perfect way in life. If Napoleon had not come the republic would have been nipped in the bud and there would have been a set-back to democracy. The Cosmic Spirit is not so foolish as to allow that. Carlyle puts the situation more realistically when he says that the condition was, “I kill you, or you kill me”. So, it is better that I kill you rather than get killed by you!

All this criticism by the intellectuals does not take into consideration the immense complexity of the problem.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no objection to that, but how is war to be avoided? How can you prevent war when the other fellow wants to fight? You can prevent it by becoming stronger than he, or by a combination that is stronger than he, or you change his heart, as Gandhiji says, by passive resistance or Satyagraha.

And even there Gandhiji has been forced to admit that none of his followers knows the science of passive resistance. In fact, he says, he is the only person who knows all about Satyagraha. It is not very promising for Satyagraha, considering that it is intended to be a general solution for all men. What some people have done at some places in India is not Satyagraha but Duragraha.

Disciple: One day you spoke of the inrush of forces during periods of human history for example, the Greek and the Arab period. Can we similarly speak not of an inrush of forces that influences the outward life and events but of a descent of some higher Force in case of men like Christ and Buddha?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is a descent of a higher Force which at first works in one man, then in a group of men and then extends its influence to mankind. In the case of Mahomed,— and that is another dictator! — the descent corresponded with the extension in outer life. But the

descent may be only an inner descent in the beginning and may only gradually spread to other men.

There also what happens is that forces in life, at first, resist any such movement of descent. When they find that they can’t resist then they accept the new element and, in accepting, turn it into something else than what it was intended to be! For example, you find that Christianity was at first opposed, and when it was afterwards accepted it became an oppressive religion. Why? Because, it was the lower forces of nature that came in with the acceptance. It means there must have been something in the very beginning, that gave an opening. I believe many of the Christian martyrs did not suffer in the genuine Christian spirit. Most of them were full of the spirit of revenge. So, in the beginning there was passive resistance but when Christianity came to power it turned oppressive. Thus, by accepting Christianity the lower forces occupied the place of genuine spiritual force of Christ.

They had thought, “Let us establish a new religion and the thing will be done.” But the problem is not so simple.

There is a spiritual solution which I propose; but it aims at changing the whole basis of human nature. It is not a question of carrying on a movement nor is it a question of a few years. It cannot be done unless you establish spirituality as the basis of life. It is clear that Mind has not been able to change human nature radically. You can go on changing human institutions infinitely and yet the imperfection will break through all your institutions.

Disciple: Huxley suggests that you must have “non-attached men” who must “practise virtue disinterestedly”.

Sri Aurobindo: No doubt, no doubt; but how are you going to get them? And when you have got them how are

the “attached” people to accept the leadership of the “non-attached”? How is the non-attached person to make his decisions accepted and carried out by the “attached”?

Disciple: Many people in the past have tried to do the same thing, have not they?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they have. But, as I said, it has always got mixed with the powers of falsehood. That is why I want to try, if possible, to embody a power, which I call the Truth-Consciousness that will not admit of any mixture or compromise with the powers of falsehood. By the Truth-Consciousness I mean the dynamic Divine Consciousness. That power must be brought to govern the minutest detail of life and action. The question is to bring it down and establish it in men and the second question is to keep it pure. For, we have seen all along the past there is the gravitational pull of the lower forces. It must be a power that can not only resist but overcome that downward pull. If such a power can be established in a group, then, though it may not change the entire humanity at once, still it will act as a potent force for turning human nature towards it.

It was because of the difficulty of changing human nature, which Vivekananda calls the “dog’s tail”, that the ascetic path advocated flying away from Nature as the only remedy. Those people could not think it possible to change human nature, so they said, “Drop it.”

One can see how necessary it is to keep the power pure once it is established even in case of ordinary movements like Communism in Russia. There were about one and a half million men in the whole of Russia who believed in Communism. Under Lenin they refused to allow any compromise with Capitalism. It is they who were the back-bone of the Revolution.

2. How can a perfect all-merciful, all-powerful God create such a world full of misery, suffering, poverty?

3. There is no use praying to God because prayers are only for consoling ourselves.

Lajpat Rai now seems to accept the “illusion” theory as the explanation while he combated it for the whole of his life. He was a prominent leader of the Arya-Samaj, and a monotheist.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally it is tāmasika vairāgya if it is due to a sense of failure in life. Most people get this kind of Vairagya — world-repulsion — when they act for “success” and fail. Failure and frustration lead to what is called śmaśāna vairāgya — feeling of renunciation that comes to one in a cemetery — a temporary state of world-disgust.

But in his case, perhaps, it is Sattwic disgust. To the mind at this stage everything seems impermanent, fleeting and the old motives of action are no longer sufficient. It may be the result of his spiritual development through his actions in life. It is mind turning to know things. Gautama Buddha saw human suffering and he asked: “Why this suffering?” and then “How to get out of it?” That is sāttvika vairāgya. Pure sāttvika vairāgya — disgust is when one gets the perception of the littleness of everything personal,— actions, thoughts etc., and when one sees the vast world, eternal time and infinite space spread

out before oneself and feels all human action as if it were nought.

The same truth is behind the proverb: “It will be the same a hundred years hence”; and it is true so far as the personal aspect of action is concerned.

Disciple: Can it be said that personal actions and other personal things have an importance in so far as through them an impersonal consciousness, or a divine purpose, works itself out?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; in the impersonal aspect even a small personal action may have a significance. Personal actions have an importance in the evolution of the individual. But it is difficult to persuade the ordinary men to take this view.

Disciple: Lajpat Rai, who has been known as an Arya Samajist and therefore a theist, seems to doubt even the existence of God in this letter.

Sri Aurobindo: That does not matter. It only means he wants to understand the way of God’s working, the nature of this world etc.

Disciple: Promode Sen in his biography mentions that you knew Hebrew. There are other points in the book also which require clarification.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not say that I know Amhari and other African languages? (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: You have not perhaps read the account of the miracles I am supposed to have worked in Motilal Mehta’s book! One of them impressed me so much that I was never able to forget it. It happened when I was staying

in Rue St. Louis. The British Government sent the police to arrest me. It seems I was standing at the top of the staircase when they came. They climbed up the staircase but immediately afterwards they found themselves at the bottom! They repeated the performance several times and finding themselves at the bottom of the staircase every time they left me in utter disgust and went away, (laughter)

Disciple: There are many people who believe that you are not staying on the ground.

Disciple: They believe you always remain one or two feet above the ground. They even think that you live in an underground cellar. Perhaps, it is in this way that legends gathers round great names.

Disciple: M. used to describe the visit of a Calcutta Marwari who came to Pondicherry on business. He came to Rue de la Marine house and met M. He asked him: “Where is Sri Aurobindo? I want to see him”. M. replied: “You can’t see him”.

Then with an air of inviting confidence he asked M. “Does he fly away?” (laughter)

Disciple: Are the incidents related in the Purana about Krishna’s life psychic representations created by the poet, or do they correspond to facts that had occurred in his life on earth?

Sri Aurobindo: From the reading itself of the Puranas you can know whether the killing of the Asura is a physical fact or not. You can’t take them literally,— in the physical sense. There is a mixture of facts, tradition, psychic experience as well as history.

The poet is not writing history, he is writing only poetry: he may have got it from the psychic intuitive plane or from his imagination, from the psycho-mental plane or from any other.

What on earth does it matter whether Krishna lived on the physical plane or not? If his experience is real on the psychic and spiritual plane, it is all that matters. As long as you find Krishna as a divine Power on the psychic and spiritual plane his life on the physical plane does not matter. He is true, he is real. The physical is only a shadow of the psychic.

Sri Aurobindo: In the Vishnu Purana all the aspects of a Purana are nicely described. It is one of the Puranas I have gone through carefully. I wonder how it has escaped the general notice: it is magnificent poetry.

There is a very fine and humourous passage in which a disciple asks the Guru whether the king is riding the elephant, or the elephant the king?

Disciple: The king must be Ram Murthy if the elephant was on him! Besides this may be the theory of relativity in embryo.

Sri Aurobindo: The method of reply adopted by the Guru is original. He jumps upon the shoulders of the disciple and then asks him whether he is on the disciple’s back or the disciple is on his back?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know, but he appears very real in the Purana. It is also the most anti-Buddhist Purana I believe.

Sri Aurobindo: This Purana is not so early as that. All

the Puranas, in fact, are post-Buddhistic. They are a part of the Brahmanic revival which came as a reaction against Buddhism in the Gupta period.

Disciple: They are supposed to have been written in or about the 3rd or 4th century A. D.

Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purana Buddha is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras! He is not referred to by name but is called “Maya Moha” This Purana is a fine work.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He seems to be confused: he has over-stressed the ethical and tried to explain the spiritual idea from the ethical standpoint. The Gita’s idea of doing work without desire is too subtle for the modern mind and so he has made it “duty for duty’s sake”. The Europeans do not make any distinction between the true self and separative ego; for them it is one. Take the case of doing work without desire for the fruit. Now, if there is a separative Self then, from the rational point of view, why should not one expect the fruit of his action?

Disciple: Perhaps, it is due to the influence of Christianity in which the idea of serving the poor finds a place.

Sri Aurobindo: But the Christian idea of service from disinterestedness is quite different from that of duty for duty’s sake which is a rational standpoint Christian service is done as God’s will,— that is a religious law. When reason got the upper hand over religion it began to question the foundation of religion and then the rationalists advocated the doing of duty for the sake of society, as a social demand. The rationalists have fragmentary ideas about these things. It has become

difficult now to study philosophy — there are so many new ones, like the poets!

Charu Chandra Dutt wrote a review of the “Life Divine” in the Vishva Bharati. When it was read out to Sri Aurobindo he said:

He may continue it, it may be for some people an introduction to “Life Divine”.

i. He states: “there can be no escape for the Spirit embodied in matter except through an integral yoga”.

If we accept that position then the goal set forth by the Adwititwadins becomes impossible of realisation. What I say is not that it is impossible but that such an escape could not have been the object for which the world was created.

That is not true. I have not read much of philosophy. It is like those who say that I am influenced by Hegel. Some even say that I am influenced by Nietzsche because I quoted his sentence: “You can become yourself by exceeding yourself”.

The only two books that have influenced me are the Gita and the Upanishads. What I wrote was the work of intuition and inspiration working on the basis of my spiritual experience. I have no other technique like the modern philosopher whose philosophy I consider only intellectual and therefore of secondary value. Experience and formulation of experience I consider as the true aim of philosophy. The rest is merely intellectual work and may be interesting but nothing more.

Disciple: In a textbook of the Hindu University for the B.A. degree there is selection from Tagore in which he states that: Kalidas was very much touched by the immorality of his age and he deplores it in the “Raghu vansha”

Disciple: Kalidas we know as one who is not particular about morality. His Malvikagnimitra depicts the king Agnimitra falling in love with a dancing girl who turns out to be a princess. So also, in his other poems like Rati Vilap he mentions women in the state of drunkenness and is not shocked.

Sri Aurobindo: He is one who is attracted by beauty, even when he is attracted by a thought or philosophy it is the beauty of the thought that appeals to him.

Disciple: Tagore has said in reviewing “Shakuntala” that the love which Dushyanta felt for Shakuntala at the first sight was only passion, a result of mere physical, at most vital, attraction. But when he meets her again after separation in the Marichi Ashram his love has become purified and there was no element of passion in it.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not at all true; all that one can put from one’s own imagination. But Dushyanta is not shown outgrowing his vital passion in Shakuntala, he was made to forget it by the power of the curse. That does not mean that his attraction has lessened.

Disciple: I am reminded of the controversy about the date of Kalidas’s works. Bankim took part in it. The question was whether “Raghuvansha” was written first or “Kumar Sambhava”.

Bankim decided that “Raghuvansha” must have been a later composition. In support of his contention he referred to two slokas: One in Rati Vilap (Kumar Sambhava) and the other in Aja Vilap in Raghuvansha. He argued

that in the former the expression of grief was that of a young man, while the latter shows a more mature temperament.

Sri Aurobindo: It does not follow at all, because the subject — matter is different. In the one the physical bereavement is to be described according to the nature of Rati. A poet uses expressions suitable to the occasion and the character.

In fact, Kumar Sambhava seems later than Raghuvansha, though Raghu is more brilliant; Kumar is more deep and mature. If you grant the common belief that Kalidasa wrote only the first 8 cantos of the Kumar then it does not seem logical that a man like Kalidasa would complete Raghu leaving Kumar unfinished.

Sri Aurobindo: He finds the idea of transformation of nature in the Gita and also other things contained in The Life Divine. I don’t see all that in the Gita myself.

Disciple: A’s contention is that there are hints and suggestions in the Gita that can mean transformation. For instance, it says that one must become the instrument in the hands of the Divine. Then it says: put a madbhavamagata — “those who strive become pure and attain to my nature of becoming”. Also: nistraigunyo bhava — “becomes free from the three modes.”

Sri Aurobindo: There is no transformation there. The supramental transformation is not at all hinted at in the Gita. The Gita lays stress on certain broad lines of the integral supramental yoga: For instance:

Disciple: It speaks of the Para Prakriti and says that advanced souls attain to the Para Prakriti.

Disciple: Yes. I don’t find the transformation in the Gita. The exposition of the levels of consciousness beyond mind, their functions, a clear, rational statement of intuitive consciousness, inspiration, revelation, and the ascent of the consciousness through the Overmind to the supermind — these things are quite new and not found even in the Upanishads.

Sri Aurobindo: I think so; the Gita only opens out the way to our yoga and philosophy. Among the Upanishads only the Taittiriya has some general idea of the higher terms. The Veda treats symbolically the same subject.

Disciple: Suppose there is transformation in the Gita, one can ask what kind of transformation it is,— spiritual, psychic or Supramental?

Sri Aurobindo: It does not speak of transformation; it speaks of the necessity of action from a spiritual consciousness — according to it all action must proceed from a certain spiritual consciousness.

As the result of that action some change may come about in the nature which might amount to what may be called transformation. But in the Gita the instruments of action remain human throughout (the Buddhi etc.). In does not speak of the intuitive consciousness.

In our ancient works there is no conception about the evolutionary nature of the world, or rather, they do not have the vision of humanity as an evolutionary expression of the Divine in which new levels of consciousness gradually

open up, or are bound to open up. There is no clear idea of the new type of being that would evolve out of man.

If all that is contained in The Life Divine is found entirely in the old systems then it contradicts the claim that this yoga is new, or at any rate, different from the traditional methods. Perhaps A. was trying to synthesise the Gita and The Life Divine, (laughter).

Yogi Aurobindo Ghose: A biography in Marathi by P. B. Kulkarni with an introduction by Mr. K. G. Deshpande. Published at Bombay 1935.

Note: When Mr. Kulkarni thought of writing a biography he wrote to me asking for my help. I sought permission of Sri Aurobindo. He declined to comply with my request, writing: “I don’t want to be murdered by my own disciples in cold print!” That was why I did not help him. But Sri Aurobindo could not prevent others from attempting his biography.

When the book was published, I, who had a very keen and lifelong interest in determining the authenticity of the external events of his life, went through the book,— as I went through almost all biographies of his — and then took the controversial points to him. I reproduce here his general observations on the book and in a separate note I enumerate the details that require correction.

“Every one makes all the forefathers of a great man very religious — minded, pious etc. It is not true in my case at any rate. My father was a tremendous atheist.”

“The general impression he creates is that I must have been a very serious prig, all along very pious and serious. I was nothing of the kind.”

“He also states I must have been attracted by the Fabian Society started by Bernard Shaw and others. I was not, and I had no leaning to the labour party which in fact was not yet born.”

“His treatment of my life in England is more conjectural than real. He is trying to give the picture of what a budding Yogi should be like. I was rather busy with myself and took interest in many things, whereas he tries to make out that I was interested in the Fabian Society and was very moral.”

“There are inaccuracies such as his statement that I was introduced to the Gaekwad by Henry Cotton. It was not Henry Cotton but his brother, James Cotton, who knew my brother (and was being helped by him in his work) who introduced me to the Gaekwad because he took interest in us.”

“About Swami Hamsa I don’t remember his name. It was in the Gaekwad’s palace that he gave two or three lectures. I was invited. But it is not true that I went and saw him. At that time I was not interested in Yoga. I did not ask him about Pranayama. I learnt about Pranayama from the engineer Deodhar who was a disciple of Brahmananda”.

“I do not remember any yogic cure by Brahmananda; at any rate, I did not take any servant with me”.

“I first knew about yogic cure from a Naga Sadhu or Naga Sannyasi. Barin had mountain fever when he was wandering in the Amarkantak hills. The Sannyasi took a cup of water, cut it into four by making two crosses

with a knife and asked Barin to drink it, saying, «He won’t have fever tomorrow.» And the fever left him”.

“He creates an impression that I was seeking satsang, holy company, during my stay in Baroda. It is not true. It is true I was reading books, but on all subjects, not only religious books. I gave money to one Bengali Sannyasi who was quarrelling with everyone and who used to hate Brahmananda. His boast was that he killed Brahmananda!”

Note: In the Introduction by Sj. K. G. Deshpande, who was Sri Aurobindo’s contemporary at Cambridge and later on joined Sri Aurobindo in 1898 in the Baroda State service, there are some corrections to be made. He was the editor of the English section of the Induprakash and it was he who persuaded Sri Aurobindo on his return to India in 1893 to write a series of articles on Indian politics under the heading “New lamps for old” which made a great stire in the Congress of those days.

1. Sri Aurobindo did not attend any Grammar school at Manchester — as is stated in the introduction.

2. He mentions that Shivram Pant Falke taught him Marathi and Bengali. He did not learn these languages from Mr. Falke.

3. It is asserted that one “Bhasker Shashtri Joshi gave him lessons in Sanskrit and Gujerati.” He did not learn Sanskrit from any one at Baroda. He read the Mahabharata by himself and also read works of Kalidasa and one drama of Bhavabhuti as well as the Ramayana.

4. It is stated that his patriotism got the religious colour by his contact with one Swami Hamsa. Swami Hamsa had nothing to do with his nationalism. He was a Hatha Yogi and Sri Aurobindo attended his lecture in the palace on invitation. He did not meet him at his place.

5. Mohanpuri did not give him daivī upāsanā — i.e introduction to spiritual life.

It was for a purely political purpose that Sri Aurobindo took a Shakti Mantra from him. He performed certain Yajna — sacrifice — for the same purpose. But it was not yoga.

6. Bhavani Mandir: There is a similarity to the Ananda Math in that both envisage spiritual life and politics together. The temple of Bhavani was to be there for initiating men for complete consecration to the service of Mother India. It was for preparing political Sannyasins. But this scheme did not get materialised. Sri Aurobindo took to politics and Barin to revolution. The latter tried to find a place in the Vindhya mountains for the Bhavani Mandir. But he came back with mountain fever.

Norton’s eloquent advocacy in the court, or the government’s repression, had nothing to do with the failure of the scheme. In fact it was never tried.

7. He states that Sri Aurobindo resigned from the National College because of the differences with the members of the committee.

It is true he had his differences, but he never spoke about them. He sent in his resignation when the first trial was launched against him. But on his acquittal they reappointed him. When he was again tried in the Alipore Bomb case, they accepted his resignation.

So, the committee members had no open difference with him, there was no clash. They wanted to make the National College a place of learning, Sri Aurobindo wanted to make it a centre of life.

These very inaccuracies of the introduction have been dwelt upon by Mr. Kulkarni in his book, so no separate list is being given for the mistakes in the latter.

One may only add that Sri Aurobindo did not meet Madhavdasji of Malsar; at least, he did not remember having met him.

Swami {{0}}Jnanananda’s[[Swami Jnanananda was originally the son of a Zamindar in Andhra. After Sannyas he went to North India and has become a scientist since. He went to Prague and Liverpool and was in the National physical laboratory, Delhi.]] book contains the following points.

2. There is a higher world of the super-ego where things are quite differently arranged.

“It is quite interesting. I don’t know whether you can explain Raja Yoga as he does.

“But what is his Super-ego? I don’t know. Sometimes it seems what I call the subliminal self, and sometimes the psychic being. It may be something like the Over-soul.”

Disciple: Jnanananda says that the sense-world is created by the sense-ego. The so-called real world is created by the Super-ego. This Super-ego has a personality which has to be dissolved.

Sri Aurobindo: So, it is not the cosmic consciousness or the Purusha or the Over-soul.

Disciple: Then there is the Absolute. One has to break through the sense-world, the real world, and then one can enter into the Absolute; then into the Absolute Divine.

Disciple: In one of the four ways: Raja, Jnana, Karma and Shakti. One has to see this sense-world and the superego-world in the light of the Absolute Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: But he does not indicate how the Absolute Divine is to act at all in life unless he discovers something like the Supermind.

At any rate, it is an original book, quite interesting — the man has intelligence above the average.

Disciple: But there are people who having intelligence steal passages from your writings and I know the case of a Swami who is famous throughout India and the world who has plagiarized passages from your books.

Sri Aurobindo: (with a smile) The unconscious might have played a part; (laughter) or, he might turn round and say that it was taken by me from him! (laughter) or, that it was independently written! (laughter)

A review of his poems appeared in a Christian monthly magazine, New Review. The reviewer there writes that Gerald Hopkins had tried a kind of quantitative verse in English. Bridges has written notes on the 2nd edition of these poems.

Sri Aurobindo: The poem on “Mary” is very fine. Hopkins nearly becomes a great poet in his sonnets. He is not a mystic poet but a religious one. In all Catholic poets there is a note of acute suffering which he also shares. Christina Rossetti is better in that respect.

It is not that his subject is always great, but the force which he brings into his poems. In one he simply says

in effect “O God, I grant that you are just, but I don’t understand why I should be made to suffer while others who do not care for any higher values of life get all the good things of life”.

There is no sign of quantitative verse, he depends on “accent” for his verse.

Sri Aurobindo: His idea that the beings of the subtle worlds are mere creations of human imagination, or of the human soul, would only mean that they have no independent existence, which is not quite true.

I believe he has been influenced by Sufism. But his general thesis is quite tenable: that is to say, right up to the beginning of the modernist period the poets, at least most of them,— seem to have some perception or experience of other subtler worlds. They admit the existence of those worlds in some way. They sometimes even assert that this world is an illusion.

Only, his estimate of Bridges is one-sided. Probably, he wrote it at a time when Bridges was the craze, or when the Testament of Beauty was enthusiastically welcomed. I never thought much of his poetry, even in those early days, from what I saw of quotations from him. He is never rhythmical except when he rhymes. In his blank verse he is intolerable. Even the quotations given in this book are prosaic. Hardy is very good at times, at others he slips into want of rhythm.

Mehdi Imam’s interpretation of Shelley and other poets as having the experience of cosmic unity or unity with the Spirit is not quite true. With Shelley it is sublimated

eroticism. Shelley used to fall in love with almost every woman thinking her to be an angel and ended by finding her to be a devil.

He goes too far in his theory when he asserts that the “mists” of which Tennyson speaks in his Morte d’Arthur is the “ectoplasm”.

The talk began with a reference to an article on Kathopanishad by Dr. S. K. Maitra. The opposition between “Shreyas” and “preyas” has been interpreted by him as an opposition between “Existence” and “Value.”

Sri Aurobindo: What is a value? He has not defined it. I do not know what he means by saying: “God or the ultimate Reality is the highest value”.

Disciple: He also speaks of the opposition between the first two and the last two lines of Yama’s speech — “One cannot attain the Permanent — Dhruva — by means which are transient.” And then he speaks of his having attained the Eternal — Nityam — by means of things impermanent.

Sri Aurobindo: His interpretation seems a little far-fetched. It is the Fire that makes the attainment of the Eternal possible. The first two lines only mean that “if you are attached to the ephemeral you can’t attain the Eternal.” The last two lines means that “if one can offer the impermanent things into the Fire then it can make one attain the Eternal.”

Bharati Sarabhai’s poetical work The People’s well was received. Sri Aurobindo saw the book and found:

She is not clear about what she wants to say. India seems to be the old woman in the poem and the idea is that she has something very precious which nobody knows about and which she may discover some day.

1. That Sri Aurobindo had tried to answer Shankara in some of the chapters in The Life Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: I am not answering Shankara’s Mayavada in particular in The Life Divine. I had to examine the stand taken up by all those thinkers who consider the world an illusion for various reasons. I have examined their grounds.

As to Mayavada being true, each philosophy is true on its own basis. So is Mayavada if you accept its premises. In my examination I was trying to see whether there was anything in any of the possible positions of Mayavada which would make it obligatory on the human mind to accept it. I find that there is no such obligation, at least I don’t find any on my mind. What I say amounts to that.

Besides, the position of Mayavada has been taken by many even in Europe, and the Christian religion took a similar position even before Shankara. It considers this world as almost unreal. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of the Spirit.” This world is a

mistranslation of the world of the Spirit. They also make a distinction between Soul and Spirit. They maintain that this world is necessary for the Soul, but another world belongs to the Spirit.

Schopenhauer thinks this world a kind of delirium — which almost comes to the theory of illusion. There are others in the West who have taken a similar stand.

The manuscript was submitted to Sri Aurobindo. The following corrections were suggested and they were carried out in the text by the author.

The items are given here as an illustration of Sri Aurobindo’s scrupulousness for exactness and detail.

i. “He ascribes certain writings of Shyam Sundar Chakravarty to me. He closely imitated my style.”.

ii. He makes me an apostle of non-violence. The quotation he gives from the statement in the court I don’t remember at all, because I made no statement.

iii. About a district political conference — which was broken up — and about a separate meeting held by the nationalists over which Sri Aurobindo presided — “I do not remember whether it was Midnapore or Hugli.” Then on 29-11-1943 Sri Aurobindo said: “There was a stormy meeting at Midnapore. It was the storm that preceded Nagpur and Surat. But there was no split at Hugli.”

iv. Regarding letters to Mrinalini Devi he said: “He has made so much rhetoric and lecturing out of them that they cease to be letters.”

v. “He mentions that I was ill in jail. I do not remember to have had any illness in jail, except perhaps

eczema-trouble in the foot, due to dirty blankets and germ.”

vi “I did not take the B. A. degree; I only took double Tripos at Cambridge. It was not Oscar Browning as provost who spoke highly of me as a student. He was well known at Cambridge. He examined the Latin and Greek papers.”

vii. “I was not appointed in the Khasgi — private-Department at Baroda and I was not the private secretary though I acted as one in the absence of the secretary. It was only during the Kashmere-tour that I was the private secretary to the Maharaja. But I had several tussles with him and he did not want to repeat the experiment.”

viii “He states that I was invited to all the dinners and banquets — well, I never went to any State — dinner or banquet. Only I used to be called privately to dinner and I attended.”

C.R. Das sent a wire to Sri Aurobindo asking for a message for the paper he was bringing out from Calcutta.

“Such a message at present would amount to a public announcement and I do not like to make any pronouncement at present. It must be done at the proper time, because it would set in motion forces in opposition. Besides, there are other papers that have demanded similar messages and I would not know how to refuse them if I make up my mind to send you one.

Again, if I put myself out like that, it would interfere with the silent support which I am giving you. I am acting in a particular way, and if I create directly a field then the two would mutually interfere. I do not at present want to act on the physical plane as it would evoke opposition”.

The general rule with Sri Aurobindo was that whoever wanted to meet him at Pondicherry should first write to him and only after securing his approval come here to see him. Mr. X. came unannounced and wanted to see Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: This man is quite unfit for taking up this yoga. I am not going to see him as he has come down without previous information.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be for humanity but not for him. Besides, that is not the sense of the sentence. He may read “Yoga and its Objects” and follow the hints given there.

Sri Aurobindo: It is only out of Karuna grace that I do not want to give him this yoga.

These people have a very crude notion of yoga. They think it is something like the Guru asking the disciple to repeat the name, or the Mantra, and then the Guru’s Kripa — compassion — will rain down in abundance upon them. All his pleading shows a want of balance and an emotional temperament. If he were in earnest he would have taken my refusal in another fashion. The old Bhakti yoga seems to have done so much harm. People think that yoga is very easy and simple.

Disciple: X is very sincere, I don’t think he knew about the rule of informing before coming here.

Sri Aurobindo: Sincerity is another matter; but there is no yogic demand in him. He merely got an idea in the mind and some emotion and has run down here.

One Mr. K. had written some letters to Sri Aurobindo and asked for explanations of his experiences and wanted guidance.

Sri Aurobindo: Ah, I see; he is the same man, son of a pleader. No, he is impossible.

Disciple: That is a reply to all questions past, present and future. He would no longer trouble you.

(After a little pause) He is quite unprepared. The descent, if it takes place, is more likely to smash him up.

Besides, he is wrong in thinking that attraction for woman is abnormal; it is quite normal. It is a sick mind that makes him think otherwise.

When I first saw him he was quite nervous. I could see the whole being coming and entering into me.

Disciple: He says he has lost his intellectual power and will and everything else. Something must descend, he says, from Above and raise him up from his present condition.

Sri Aurobindo: It is very funny; how people find a glimpse of the higher life and then go on jumping about.

Disciple: I think that before one man becomes divine, half the world will go mad. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: I thought you wanted him to have a room for meditation; first handcuff him and then make him meditate!

Sri Aurobindo: It is not exactly missing its way. It is like a force working and if somebody by chance happens to get into the circuit and if there is something in him that is responsive then he gets a glimpse. But his other parts, being not prepared, do not understand it.

I found he had some psychic glimpses here and there, but he is thoroughly collapsed now.

Sri Aurobindo: You call it force? It is not force, it is some wild intensity of weakness.

A letter from Krishna Shashi, who was mentally deranged, was read in which he gave various reasons why he should be permitted to come to Pondicherry. One was that he was becoming black in the colour of his body, but it was shining black! The Madrasi too has a dark complexion so he should stay at Pondicherry!

Sri Aurobindo: (after a hearty laugh): “Even in his madness he is always original! He never goes along the beaten track!”

About another man wanting to take up yoga he said: “He has some easy itching for yoga,— I mean restlessness, due to something central in him wanting it But there is something that may obstruct the yoga.”

There was a article in the “Forward” on Mono Mohan Ghose’s death in which it was written that “He had left behind him Barindra Kumar and Sri Aurobindo”

Sri Aurobindo: (after a good laugh on hearing this): People do not understand “leaving behind” generally refers to children and not to brothers! These news papers write anything without proper inquiry. The age given to Monomohan is quite wrong. It is said to be the same as mine and in that case, naturally, we are twins! (laughter)

There was reading of a letter of condolence from one Bharati from Pudukotah on Monomohan’s death. The last sentence was: “Let him enjoy a long life in heaven at least.”

Sri Aurobindo: He seems to be very much afraid that he might be short-lived even there! (laughter) Do you know this man is writing my biography — “Aurobindo Vijayam” — without knowing anything about my life? (hearty laughter). I think the last sense will be one in which I shall be described as overcome by grief at Monomohan’s death!

A letter from Taraknath Das describing certain of his experiences and asking certain questions was read. The questions were about:

Sri Aurobindo: He has been progressing well and should be asked to continue till he has a glimpse of something higher than the mind.

Sri Aurobindo: There are many ways of classification and there are no hard and fast rules. In the old way, they always classified Samadhi with regard to the Mind,— saying it Savikalpa and Nirvikalpa, or Sakalpa and Nirkalpa. All that is with reference to the Mind.

If he wants to know the meaning which Ramakrishna gave to those terms then he must find it out himself.

Disciple: Ramakrishna means by Jada the Nirvikalpa and by Chaitanya the experience of one’s being floating in the ocean like a fish or like a bird flying in the infinite sky.

Sri Aurobindo: That is, again, with reference to the Mind — and mental yoga. You can classify it in different ways. But generally the classifications based upon:

2. According to the plane — vital, physical or mental (on which it occurs), or

3. according to its reference to Jagrata, Swapna, and Sushupti state of consciousness (the waking, the dream state, and the state of condensed consciousness).

Sri Aurobindo: It is a state of consciousness with reference to which your mind is not awake, your mind is Sushupta — asleep — and so you do not project yourself in the external or in the internal being. But what is Sushupta to one may be consciousness to another. A man

may be quite conscious in Sushupti.

Sri Aurobindo: For instance, in the Supermind all things meet. These things, savikalpa etc., do not apply to the Supermind.

Disciple: In the old path they used Sushupta condition to go into the Superconscient stage, did they not?

Sri Aurobindo: That was the use of it. But then they recognised no intermediate gradations. From Mind they jumped to the Parabrahman; for them the Superconscient was the Brahman only. But the stages that you find in the Vedas and in the Upanishads after the Mind is left behind, all become lost.

Sri Aurobindo: In the Upanishads it is quite different from abstract philosophy. There different men have given their own different experiences and you have to take them as experiences. For instance, I myself made different classifications of various movements and their mixture and also the mixtures of mixtures, their comparisons and subtler movements. But I have used them for my own guidance,— for personal knowledge and use. But I would not think of putting them in book-form.

These classifications are there as steps and as general guidance. Once you have the experience you can have your own classification for guidance. Of course, general things about the physical, the vital which everybody can experience and which are the same for all can be given in book-form; or when the higher experiences come, for instance, Intuition and revelation etc. then you can know them yourself.

Disciple: Once it seems the Mother came to Ramakrishna with a golden body, and told him to take it. But he said, “No, I don’t want it”, and then later he said: “Suppose I kept it, then all people would rush to me.”

Sri Aurobindo: Was he afraid of that? In Ramakrishna you find clear Intuition, and revelations of the higher order within a limited area,— they are not of the universal kind. In this yoga one has to go beyond conventional ideas and also to have a mind which is elastic.

In the jail I was proceeding by the old method and I found all the conventional ideas were broken. For eight or ten days all sorts of ideas,— of cruelty, hatred, and other disgusting thoughts came till the mind ceased to give any reaction to them and then all old ideas were broken. You can’t have the Higher Consciousness unless the mind is very elastic and open and receptive.

You have also to accept Asuric and Rakshasik things, get the knowledge,— know what they are,— and throw them away. Otherwise the ascent to the Supermind would be narrow and limited, not rich and varied and wide. But, of course, all cannot do that.

D wrote a letter to M. a disciple, on 14-11-1924. It was meant to be read to Sri Aurobindo.

D had requested Sri Aurobindo to give his views on marriage, particularly as he intended taking up the yoga in future. He wanted to know what attitude a person intending to take up the highest spiritual life should adopt towards marriage. D. admitted that he felt sex-attraction and did not want to resort merely to repression.

Sri Aurobindo: It is rather a delicate matter to answer. Perhaps the following points may be offered to him.

1. What is ordinarily known as sex-attraction is mainly a pull on the vital and physical planes between man and woman. This attraction, generally, get mixed up with emotions and sentiments and is almost always mistaken for love, or psychic relation.

For those who want to give up life altogether — that is to say, for Sannyasins etc. — marriage in the ordinary sense is out of the question. Because marriage is the one thing that strongly fixes down a person to life. Woman by nature has the strongest tendency to sick to life. She, generally, pulls down the man and fixes him to life. This is especially intended by nature for the continuance of the race and life.

2. Secondly, there is a meeting together of the psychic of the man and of the woman,— a union of soul with soul. This, of course, is difficult to get.

The first point refers to the ordinary life in the vital and the physical planes.

In the higher life there are two types, two gradations, of meeting of man and woman. One is the psychic union, the other is the spiritual.

The man of high idealism — the poet, the artist, has a developed psychic being. In the ordinary man, it is not developed. For a psychically developed man to get a woman of the right type is rather difficult. But it such a union could come about it would be a great help to both of them.

Disciple: But his question would be how to find out the right sort of woman for marriage.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no hard and fast rule in these things. It is all to be found out by an inner perception. It is not a science, it is an art.

Even when the union of the psychic takes place between the two, the other parts, the mental, the vital

and the physical of one may clash with that of the other and the gain of the psychic being may be spoiled by this disharmony. But if the psychic being dominates in both then these difficulties may slowly clear up. The spiritual relation between man and woman is the most difficult to achieve. The man seeking the higher divine life, the seeker after divine Consciousness and the Truth,— who is Purusha,— if he meets the woman of the right type, the woman who is his Shakti. — then his spiritual life, the life which he is to manifest, is enriched and becomes full. In this case also there is the psychic union between the two.

In the case of those who have the psychic union of the proper kind to start with, the spiritual relation may gradually develop and manifest itself.

In the spiritual union the woman who is the Shakti must be really a Power — that is to say, a powerful personality who can receive the help from the Purusha in the proper way. Each must be of real help to the other: this relation is the most difficult to attain. These difficulties come to the Sadhaka; to the Siddha. the perfected soul, there is no difficulty. He knows fully well what is to be manifested. If his Shakti is there he knows where she is and he will get her.

Sri Aurobindo: The Shakti is not necessary for the yoga: without the Shakti full knowledge, consciousness, power and Ananda can be attained. But if these elements are to be brought to and manifested in life then the Shakti is necessary. If there is no Shakti then he cannot bring down the Knowledge, Power, Ananda etc. that are in him into life. He can, in that case, only prepare the way for the work to be done at a future time.

Disciple: Suppose a person aspiring for spiritual life marries, what would happen to him?

1. If it is an ordinary marriage he may be pulled down to the lower level of consciousness, apart from the cares, anxieties and responsibilities he may be burdened with. In that case he may lose his aspiration for the higher life and may be completely changed on account of the woman’s influence on him

You can write to D. that Sri Aurobindo does not believe in marriage as it exists at present in society and as an institution. He does not ask a person to marry or not to marry; it is left entirely to the person concerned.

For a person who aspires for some kind of higher life it is common, especially for those who have a strong vital being, to have a tendency for vital enjoyment, and vital relation with a woman. Sri Aurobindo has no objection to this as an experience and perception. Only, in a Yogi’s life these have to be transformed into the movements of the Higher Nature.

i. The distinction between the Higher Knowledge and mental or intellectual knowledge.

iii. Ramakrishna says that one who wants God must give up everything for him. Should he follow this idea?

Sri Aurobindo: As to the first point you write to him that it is the Higher Knowledge — its Jyoti — which illumines the mind. The distinction between mental will and the Higher Tapas-Shakti he cannot know at present as he has not been given the yoga which is practised here. For doing this yoga he has to decide finally what he intends to do when he goes out of jail. He may have to leave off his external activities. But that he must decide by referring to his inner being.

As to leaving everything for God I do not know what Ramakrishna may have meant. But I want him to understand that he ought not to decide by what Ramakrishna said, or what I say, but by what he feels within his own beings, in the inmost depth of his being.

What I feel is that A has mental ideas about spiritual things but does not seem to have turned his inner eye within himself. I do not want to call him away from the true demand of his inner being.

Disciple: A has been doing political work as you know. So, the question from him would be: What is the connection between yoga and the political work?

Sri Aurobindo: The present-day political activity is intensely Rajasic in its nature and its reconciliation with yoga is not easy. In fact, all those who took to this yoga had to give up political activity.

Disciple: Why should it be so? There is acceptance of life in this yoga, is there not?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is no rejection of life; you can say, life is accepted in this yoga. But we regard the inner life as more important, the outer only as an expression, a form, of it.

Disciple: Can one not take up the outer action — say. political — in the yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: External action can also be taken up in this yoga but it must be in keeping with the inner life. The outside world regards all those who do this yoga here as “lost” to all work. But that is not the correct reading. It is not that we have no sympathy with the political aspirations of the country; only, we can’t go into them in the Rajasic way

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I did it but it was done in the attitude I just now described i.e. by leaving the work in the hands of the Higher Power.

Disciple: Suppose India accepts the Truth which the yoga wants to bring down into life?

Sri Aurobindo: If the Truth which the yoga wants to achieve is attained and if India accepts it, then it will give quite a new turn to Indian politics — different from European politics. It would be a profound change.

But that is a question which A will have to decide afterwards. For the present, A must find out why he wants the yoga, whether he has a call — a true call. And the second question is whether he has the capacity. I do not know about his capacity but he requires, I believe, a long preparation.

Some questions were put to Sri Aurobindo about a Sadhaka who wanted to give Sadhana — initiation into Yoga to others. Both the Sadhakas were at Chittagong.

ii. X had some possibilities which were destroyed because of his vanity. He thought that he was a great Sadhaka and tried to pose as such.

iii. X was self-willed and never used to pay attention to the instructions sent to him from Pondicherry. He had one idea in his mind: that everything that was coming to him was from Shakti or Kali, though he was repeatedly warned against it.

iv. He could not distinguish between what was true and what came to him from the vital and the lower world.

v. At present X is completely under the control of vital suggestions and hallucinations with the erotic impulse behind them and all his saying that he is down what I tell him and that “my concentration helps him” is false. It is the explanation given by those lower powers to justify their ways to him.

This Yoga is not a Tantric Yoga and so I can’t do anything about the process he follows. There are things in the vital world which are both true and false and the Sadhaka of this path has to distinguish between them. The Vital is a world full of lustre and colour and hallucination which try to ape the Supramental movements. As I said the other day, it cinematographs the higher movements. It is also full of power.

If he wants to do this Yoga he must begin again: make his mind and vital being calm, give up all the movements of the ego and aspire for the Truth and nothing but the Truth.

Instead of trying to push ahead in Sadhana, it is better to give time to the preparation for Yoga which is the preliminary purification of the Adhar — the nature — mould.

Then Sri Aurobindo resumed: It seems evident that X must have done some Sadhana in his previous life and must have acquired some powers then. He must have

repressed his impulses and so they are having their satisfaction now.

Sri Aurobindo: No. But after beginning it he showed mental capacity. Evidently, something opened up in him and his physical mind was not able to bear it. He might have been trying to set things right but when the uprush came he could not distinguish between the higher and the lower movements.

It is very difficult to practise this Yoga if the outer instruments are not prepared to express the inner being. There are people who get something in their psychic being and immediately it tries to force its way out. But the outer members are not able to bear it and the whole thing breaks up.

Disciple: What will become of Y in his next life,— will his madness follow him?

Sri Aurobindo: He will have to work it out. The madness is working out sufficiently rapidly, so that he may begin next time with a better instrument.

Sri Aurobindo: In most people it is not the central being that finds expression. It is some minor personality which serves for the temporary purposes of life. The true central being is always behind.

The vital appears brilliant and imitates the rapidity

of the higher movement and creates false reflections of the Truth and can try to mislead the Sadhaka.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes. There are Asuric forces that are very calm. Do you think that the Asura is a fool? Sometimes, Tapasya is his chief weapon. Hiranya Kashipu and Ravana were great Tapaswis. Doing good to humanity is one of the favourite weapons of the Asura. Of course, he seeks to do it in his own Asuric way. The Asuri Maya can take up any garb: even the pursuit of an ideal or sacrifice for some principle!

A letter from X’s husband which raised certain general questions about the relation of man and woman in this yoga. He wants to exercise the conjugal right with his wife. Both have written to Sri Aurobindo, separately for guidance.

“Sri Aurobindo’s yoga is not a yoga of renunciation and even if renunciation was to be carried out I shall carry it out gradually. I am not able to control myself. I want to know: What is the relation between man and woman in this yoga?”

“This is not a yoga of renunciation in the sense that one has not to reject life or the world externally. But that does not mean that one has to give room to lower forces and allow them full play in their lower forms.

“This is a yoga of rising into the Divine Nature from the lower nature. What that higher Nature is you will understand afterwards. You have to Lecome fit for it. You can now see your lower nature; especially the vital play

of Kama (lust) and Krodha (anger) etc. — is essentially the Dharma — the functioning — of the animal man. You have to rise into the Divine Nature by rejecting the lower nature. How can you get the Divine Nature unless you conquer the nature of the animal-man in you? The first step has been given to you: you must learn to separate yourself as the Purusha, and took unmoved at all the play of nature in you. You must externalise the play and see all its actions as outside yourself. You ought not to allow any mental justification for the play of the lower forces of the vital beings. The Shuddhi — purification — necessary in this yoga cannot be attained with the forces of lust and anger and there is no question of harbouring them.”

In this matter, you must resort to simple thinking and simple action, leaving all mental complications and Shastric injunctions. You must not allow the intellect to play with them. Your ideas about Shastric injunctions are nothing else but justifications. Really it is the lower play of the vital being. In this rejection of the lower nature you ought to be ever alert — vigilant.

The ideal relation between man and woman in this yoga you cannot at present understand. You have, first, to make yourself fit for it. Your own ideas of married life and Shastra etc. are dangerous and if you follow these ideas there is every chance of your fall from the yoga. All of them are mental constructions. The first thing in a case where both man and woman are aspirants is to help each other in Sadhana, the spiritual effort. They must exchange their forces and help each other to rise into the Higher Consciousness.

Secondly, there is the question of love. What most people call “love” is a superficial thing and mostly bound up with the vital craving of lust. That has to be completely rejected.

There is a relation deeper than that: it is of the Soul. That relation comes from within by itself. It manifests itself in both as an ideal oneness — oneness in mind, oneness of the soul, oneness of self. That relation is Shanta, full of peace; wide, pure — pavitra. In it there is no trace of vital lust and physical craving. There is also possible a relation of Purusha and Shakti between man and woman. But that relation is not social, it is not ordinary. Because one is married to a certain woman it does not follow that his wife is necessarily his Shakti.

So long as these relations are not understood and experienced by you another possible relation is that of friends. That is to say, you ought to live with your wife just as you would with a friend who has the same aim of life, without any other relation than that of friendship.

You must remove the misunderstanding from your mind about your wife that she does not love you, etc. She has an aspiration for the yoga and therefore she wants to reject all the lower play of nature from herself and from you. You ought not to press her or induce her to fall from the path of yoga. If you can’t control yourself you should live separately and fight your nature.

You write about passivity and activity: you have to understand and know what they are. When one begins yoga, naturally, all the forces on the mental — and especially on the vital — plane, that are hostile to the Siddhi of this yoga, are bound to rise and one must be active in rejecting them — what the Gita calls apramatta — because the Purusha is not only sākṣī — the witness — but anumantā — one who gives consent. This activity of rejection must be always there. Even if you fall you must rise up again and again and fight.

Passivity merely means a calm inactive attitude of mind keeping it open to the higher influence and ready to accept the light, power, knowledge, Ananda that come from Above.

It must be a prayerful mood so that the knowledge may come down. When the higher knowledge comes one ought not to allow the mind to get active with it, but must allow that knowledge to come more and more by keeping the mind passive.

Both passivity and activity are legitimate movements of this yoga in the beginning. The highest, the true passivity will, of course, come afterwards. If you remain passive now, you will open yourself to all sorts of influences and accept all kinds of suggestions, ideas etc. coming from outside — from the universal nature. You will mistake them for those coming from the higher Power.

Two letters containing some questions about Sadhana — spiritual practice were received.

Sri Aurobindo: It is no use X trying to have the current of force at present. The Supramental yoga is out of his reach at present. He seems to be puzzled as to what is “life” and what is “action”. It does not mean only “marriage” and “earning”. He does not understand that Karma-yoga — yoga of action — does not require any vast field. It is not necessary to become a prime-minister or a millionaire to do Karma yoga.

He speaks of Raja yoga, but in Raja yoga also a certain purification of nature is required which is done by Yama and Niyama before the aspirant can succeed in meditation and attain Samadhi.

In this yoga also something similar is to be done, though in a different manner. He has, first, to try to understand his own nature and get rid of egoistic motives from his actions and of desires from the vital being. He must try to acquire Samata — equality and Sattwic

balance. That is to say, he should reject lower motives and learn to act from higher motives and with a Sattwic temperament. All our actions proceed from a certain inner attitude and he has to see whether he can change the motive of desire for a higher one.

He can read the first few chapters of the Essays on the Gita and try to understand Karma yoga. Some sort of Karma yoga is the best preparation for this yoga. He cannot get the current of the higher Power now; he must make himself fit for the higher Power. The Real Shakti-Power cannot come unless the Adhar — the receptacle — is purified. She can force the way, but in that case there will be all confusion and Adhar may break.

In a letter the question raised was: “Is not all action incompatible with Sri Aurobindo’s yoga”?

Sri Aurobindo: His idea that all action is incompatible with this yoga is not correct. Generally, it is found that all Rajasic activity does not go well with this yoga: for instance, political work.

1. Being Rajasic in its nature, it does not allow that quiet and knowledge on the basis of which the work should really proceed. All action requires a certain inner formation, an inner detached being. The formation of this inner being requires one to dive into the depth of the being, get the true Being and then prepare the true Being to come to the surface. It is then that one acquires a poise — an inner poise — and can act from there. Political work by Rajasic activity which draws the being outwards prevents this inner formation.

2. The political field, together with certain other fields, is the stronghold of the Asuric forces. They have

their eye on this yoga, and they would try to hamper the Sadhana by every means. By taking to the political field you get into a plane where these forces hold the field. The possibility of attack in that field is much greater than in others. These Asuric forces try to lead away the Sadhaka from the path by increasing Kama and Krodha — desire and anger, and such other Rajasic impulses. They may throw him permanently into the sea of Rajasic activity.

He asks about the synthesis between Sadhana and action. In this yoga such a synthesis is not necessary in the beginning. The Sadhak — aspirant — in general, opens himself alternately to the higher Power and to the ordinary life. It goes on like that for a long time. Then comes a time when the two powers oppose each other and then the need for synthesis arises.

But if the difficulty is only intellectual then it need not be solved now. In this yoga intellect is not the chief instrument,— experience is primary. Of course, there is the intellectual side of yoga which the mind of the Sadhak must grasp as it would be helpful to him. But it is the experience which is the most important thing.

In a letter from Allahabad a question was asked: “Do you find that you are more energetic after practising yoga than you were when you appeared for the I.C.S. examination?”

Sri Aurobindo, turning to a disciple, asked the same question in a general form.

Sri Aurobindo: Does it mean that you are less energetic now than before you began Sadhana?

Sri Aurobindo: My experience is quite the reverse. I feel ten times more energetic than ever I was before yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: That is due to Tamas — inertia. The question is not of Tamas, coming up. Even if Tamas came, why should the energy be absent?

Disciple: Did you find in your case a steady increase of energy with the practice of yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: No, not steady. I was more energetic when I was working in politics than I had been before; when I took up yoga I was more energetic than I had been in politics.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, one can’t do what others demand of one. The question is whether you have the energy, never mind in what way it is put forth. For instance, in that house just before I began the Arya there was a period of six months in which there was a continual spiritual experience and I could not do any writing at that time. But that does not mean I was less energetic.

I could not have written the 64 pages of the Arya before without flagging. I give another instance: now I do not find it possible to make speeches as before. If I am asked to make speeches I would find myself very unenergetic.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not a speech! And even that I am doing because X expects me to speak!

Sri Aurobindo: It is true within certain limits. The animal instinct is limited to a particular purpose. It is something ingrained in the being, something that is handed down to a particular species.

Disciple: There is a report on the behaviour of rats, in an American publication. It describes how the rats attacked a hanging shelf full of eggs, formed a chain to drop them down and how they carried away all the eggs.

Sri Aurobindo: This may shock some people — but the ordinary idea about the animals is, of course, absurd. They are much nearer to man than is generally supposed.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? They have as much intelligence as men have. The behaviour and action of the rats just now described is a work of intelligence.

I told you, perhaps, how the other day I saw a spider. He wanted to balance his cobweb against some weight in order to support it. He put a blade first, but found it was not heavy enough. So he went down and brought a small piece of gravel and with it balanced the web. Now, you can’t call this instinct. It is intelligence. What we

can say is that the animals have not got developed mind. We can call this intelligence vital intelligence or vital mind. It works very correctly within limits. But if you take the animal out of the field, in which its instinct is unerring, you will find that it stumbles even more than the rational mind.

The reason why the animal mind thinks correctly is that the animals have not got the struggle between the vital and the mental being as man has got.

The talk turned on the content of a letter by a Sadhika — lady Sadhaka — who said in her letter that her husband was trying to justify the lower sexual impulse by quoting Shastra and also by saying that Sadhana ought to be done through Bhoga — enjoyment. He also complained that Sri Aurobindo’s yoga was more rigorous than even the path of Sannyas — renunciation. He argued: “What is the use of a relation between man and woman if there is no sexual enjoyment?”

Sri Aurobindo: Tell her that the true relation between man and woman cannot be understood by them. They must advance a great deal before they can understand it. It is no use trying to understand it intellectually.

She must go on with her own Sadhana without caring to lift her husband. If he has something genuine in him he will come up. Everything depends upon him so far as he is concerned. He has something in him which is turned to yoga but his vital being requires great purification. He has been given quite elementary practice — abhyāsa. He is asked to watch his nature as the Purusha — the witness — and to reject the play of the lower nature. He can also seek help from above.

The element in his vital nature trying to justify the

lower impulses by reasons and arguments is very dangerous.

A letter from a gentleman putting questions about the jīvātman and the paramātman and their relation and also about the experience of the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo: (with a smile): You can ask him to read all the issues of the Arya where he will find solutions of all his questions.

There was talk about the translation in Marathi of Yoga and its Objects. Sri Aurobindo was told some details about it.

Sri Aurobindo: I have no objection to my books being translated if they are written by people who know how to write.

Disciple: Unfortunately your books are like no man’s land. This writer believes the refrain or burden of the book to be “Yoga is for humanity”.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I think many people would be sorely disappointed if they came to know that I had already outgrown that “humanity-stage”. It is one of the great illusions.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is one of the most powerful Sattwic illusions which people have. It has a very great hold.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the question whether one can do anything for humanity. The question is whether anything can be done? The difficulty is that people expect humanity to change by some sort of miracle into something which is not humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: Wouldn’t you think it a miracle if all the 1500 or more millions of people that are living on the earth could be changed into something that is superhumanity?

Sri Aurobindo: Imagine the whole of humanity from Bernard Shaw to the maid servant being changed into something which is not humanity.

Disciple: But, then, do you think that humanity is not moving at all and that there has been no evolution up till now?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t say that. Humanity is moving itself. The only difficulty is that it has a tendency to come back to its starting point again and again! (laughter)

Disciple: Suppose this time we succeed in the yoga and the Supermind comes down into the physical, I do not expect it in one day but in course of time.

Sri Aurobindo: You mean Kalpas — cycles — afterwards? Even then, do you suppose that the whole human race will be transformed suddenly into the Supramental race?

Disciple: In that case nothing can be done for humanity. One can only write books for humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t say that nothing is, or can be, done for humanity. What I say is that there is nothing radically altered, no fundamental change in humanity, in spite of all that has been done.

Time after time something comes down from Above, but again you find humanity the same as ever. Look at Christianity, all the millions in Europe who profess it. Do you think they believe in Christianity? Not even ten percent try to live out Christianity. That is the difficulty with humanity. Something comes down from Above. In order to make it available to the whole community you have to give it such a form as to make it suitable to all capacities and in that change the Truth gets mixed with their falsehood — so much so that it no longer remains what it was. Buddha came and tried and did not succeed, and I think any effort would not succeed.

Disciple: Anatole France seems to hold that humanity is what it is and is going to be what it is. Perfection may come to man but humanity will remain what it is. True perfection is possible but it would be in something that is different from man.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, you can give a religion or create a sect and be a prophet or something of the kind. But nothing will be really done.

Disciple: But when the Supermind comes down do you think that there would be no connection between man and superman?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t say there would be no connection. There is no reason why there should be no relation.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but, as is now admitted, such a radical change cannot be done in the human being. We can also call man the “Mental being”, though it is a complement which the average man does not deserve as he is hardly a “mental being.” All the same we can say “human consciousness” or “the mental consciousness”. As a radical change in this mental consciousness cannot be brought about by the mind, we want to change it by something which is not mind, we call it Supermind. As man is

removed from the animal, so would be the Superman from man.

Sri Aurobindo: That does not seem to be the accepted theory now. They say that the monkey and ourselves are cousins. All the same I should like that man would be nearer to Superman than the animal is to man.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not exactly for humanity, it is for something which is more than humanity. It is bringing about a change from humanity to super-humanity. Of course, that change is to come in, and from, humanity, it is not to drop from heaven. But it would create something quite different from man.

Sri Aurobindo: I can’t say. But I can say this that it would necessitate a change in the physical functions; they would have all to be transformed. Otherwise, this stupid body of man would be incapable of holding the Supramental Power.

Then the questions were raised: 1. The nature of the Supramentalised body. 2. The nature of the economic organisation in the life of Supermen. About the second question Sri Aurobindo made a humorous remark: “In the Supramental economic organisation you would not expect X to go and fish on the pier at Pondicherry.”

About the first he said. This question about the nature of the Supramental body was answered by Theon. He was

in France at that time and he said the Supramental body would be a “body of light” — “crops glorieux.” He had a number of disciples some of whom where mathematicians and scientists. One of them brought the solution one day that the body of the Superman would be a sphere! Theon said: “It may be, but it would be very inconvenient if people want to kiss each other!” (laughter)

Disciple: Jokes apart, I want to know whether the human body would not cast its imperfection on the manifestation of the Spirit? Would not the Supermind require another form?

Sri Aurobindo: Another physical form may not be required. What I can say, at present, is that all the physical functions would have to be transformed. The present physical body is “stupid” compared to what is required of it for Supra-mentalisation.

There was a letter from a Sadhaka at Chittagong describing his experience and asking for guidance.

Sri Aurobindo: You can write to him that the idea prevalent, but mistaken, at Chittagong is that yoga means seeing visions and that it is something mysterious and miraculous, or receiving suggestions. This is a great mistake. The aim of yoga is not seeing visions but to change the consciousness.

There are many kinds of visions. Some visions are only images, some are forms taken by our vital desires, or they are images of mental thoughts. Often they are our own creations; they do not correspond to any Truth. True visions are very rare and they can’t be completely understood unless one had the right discernment and great purity in the being. I would like all people

interested in our yoga to understand this thing. Such visions as they have been seeing obviously show that they are creations of their vital desires that have taken form. Such visions have no value whatever from the point of view of Sadhana. In yoga one has to be prepared for dry work which is very necessary: the purification of the entire being and then discipline of self — mastery and self — control. He must reject those false visions. He must aspire for some more solid things.

There was reference made to Sri Aurobindo about the marriage of a girl who was the sister of a disciple.

Sri Aurobindo: It seems she wants to marry; in that case it is no use trying to restrain her artificially, or trying to foist Sadhana on her when she is not willing.

Let her choose out of the three proposals. About yoga, if she has a call — a deep call — it will last and assert itself. It can never be lost. On the contrary, an artificial demand for Sadhana created by external pressure may be very bad for her. It may not last and would easily give way before the demands of the ordinary life and its impulses.

There was nothing of general interest during the interval. Some events may be noted:

1. A false wire from Krishnashashi informing Sri Aurobindo that he was dead under the signature of “Jyoti,” was received. This was contradicted by Mohini from Chittagong.

2. A disciple from Madras sent a copy of the “Theosophist”. It contained lectures and the latest declaration by Mrs. Besant: Krishna Murty’s avatarhood and the descent of the world-teacher in him:

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I made an unsuccessful effort. What she used to write before was readable and had some power. But this is rather hopeless.

Sri Aurobindo: I know those visions. They are just what our Chittagong people are getting, they are full of imaginations. They are not visions that come to one, but those which one creates for one’s self by pressure. One man told me that I have to close my eyes and begin to imagine I am in another’s body and I shall be at once in that plane. I tried it once and saw it is very easy. You can construct the history of the world from the remotest past without much difficulty.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in their own way. But if a descent of a great Truth is to take place there must be a very solid preparation to hold it. That is a more important work than holding up somebody as the Avatar.

A letter from Subhas Chandra Bose to Dilip Kumar Roy appeared in the “Pravartak” of Chandernagore. Subhash remarked in it that though he had great respect for Vivekananda he considers Sri Aurobindo — “gabhir” deeper than the former. In the letter he accepts Sri Aurobindo as a genius and a great Dhyani, but he thinks that too long remaining away from what is called “active life” tends to one-sided development and may help some few to become Supermen, but for the generality of men he would prefer the path of service and work.

This letter was read out by a disciple. Sri Aurobindo heard it and was glad that it was short.

Sri Aurobindo: I met X today and he told me that Madame Y who is a Theosophist and has some experiences in yoga on the mental level is coming to India from France. She has an idea of regenerating India by settling some spiritually-minded Europeans in India.

She has got an illusion of work and many Europeans have got the same. They think that they can do spiritual work, with their ideas they come to India and get lost in the ocean that is India and fail to achieve anything substantial. They don’t make any impression and even if something is done it is lost out of recognition after some time — you can’t recognise what it was.

He continued: For ordinary men work is, of course, necessary, but one who wants to do “divine work” must prepare himself. He must learn to be “an instrument” first. All these Europeans have to learn that the work they take up is only a preparation for the divine work. They must know that it is not any mentally constructed work to which they must obstinately stick, if they want to be the instruments of God.

For instance, all these tall ideas like Madame Y’s about regenerating India and taking up big schemes and being regarded as big workers and saviours have got a fascination. One who wants to do the divine work must learn to forget the difference between important and unimportant work,— small work and great work — till the work that is intended is found by him.

Disciple: She would profit spiritually only if she learnt from her work and her experience. India has got her own Dharma and work for her has to be done in keeping with her Dharma.

Sri Aurobindo: She has another mania: getting inspiration for her work. I explained to X that it is not inspiration that comes always. You can drag down what your mind has chosen; your desire or your own idea, your impulse

or even your own mental preference can reflect itself like that, and appear to you as coming from Above. One who wants to do divine works must first attain to spiritual perfection. If one is sincere then generally he profits by such work. For instance, such a man will submit his inspiration to the test of hard physical experience. If it is found true there then it is true. But if the inspiration fails to come true in life then one can set himself on the right path if one is sincere. But what people generally do is that if the inspiration fails they get another and then another explaining each one away to themselves.

There are people who follow up their intuition or inspiration and turn out solid work like J. C. Bose.

Disciple: At the time of the non-cooperation Dr. P. C. Ray came forward enthusiastically and joined the movement. But J. C. Bose said that if he was to do service to India he could only do it through his scientific work.

Some medical students left their studies, went to work in the villages and came back within a short time shorn of all emotional enthusiasm.

Sri Aurobindo: What do they mean by village organisation? Have they any idea? They always cite the example of Russia, but they don’t know how the Russians worked.

If you want to work in the villages you must leave off all idea that it will be done very soon. It is a very laborious work. It can’t be done by lecturing. Political agitation has its own law — solid work has its own law. Our people mix up the two things. Political agitation requires you to put up a new idea before the public; then you go on hammering out that idea, wait till it catches the public’s imagination and gets connected with its vital interest. Then you wait for the psychological movement when you can get your objective. It is useful in a nation’s life.

But solid work is quite different. In Russia the

workers settled in villages, some as doctors, some as teachers doing their work and trying to raise the life there, bringing new light and new awakening. It is to be done slowly. The idea that somehow it will get done in a year or two — like “Swaraj in one year” — is all egoistic ignorance. Solid work is to be done under the law of the physical plane. The Russians waited patiently for years together and then their organisation got slowly recognised by the Government and then after a long waiting came the Revolution.

How do you expect villagers to trust every young irresponsible man who claims to do good to them? If you go on working for years then you may get into their confidence and may be able to achieve something. All these ideas of theatrical success and lightning flash-like work are most impracticable. You have to stick on to your work through all difficulties. It requires patience.

Disciple: At Sajod, in Broach District of Gujarat, educated young men have gone and settled in the villages and after nearly 15 years they are able to inspire confidence in the villagers about their work.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the only way if one wants to work in the villages. Then only a new life can gradually grow in them. They can then combine into organised units.

K wrote a letter to S containing an account of his Sadhana after receiving Sri Aurobindo’s last letter. In his letter to S he sent some questions to be answered by Sri Aurobindo to which no reply was sent for many days. Whenever Sri Aurobindo was reminded he said,

Today he inquired whether there were any important letters unanswered. He was told about K’s letter.

Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, when the psychic awakens you grow conscious of your own soul, you know your true being. You no longer commit the mistake of identifying yourself with the mental or the vital being, you do not mistake them for the soul.

Secondly, when it is awakened, the psychic being gives the Sadhaka the true Bhakti, devotion, for God or for the Guru. That devotion is quite different from mental and vital devotion.

In the mind one may have admiration for the intellectual ideas of someone, or one may have mental appreciation for some great intellect. But if it is merely mental, it does not carry matters very far, it is not sufficient by itself. It does not open the whole of the inner being; it only establishes a mental contact. Of course, there is no harm in having that. When K came here he had that mental admiration for what I have written in the Arya. One can get something from that kind of mental contact, but it is not what one can get by being in relation with the psychic being. I do not, for a moment, want to suggest that there was no truth in his Bhakti, but there was much mixture in it and even what was mental and vital was very much exaggerated.

When he began the yoga he had certain capacities. Of course, he was not half as tall as he thought himself to be. But if he had not exaggerated his capacities he would have been, by this time, farther than he is today.

The vital devotion demands and demands. It imposes its own conditions. It says to God: “You are so great, therefore I worship you; and now satisfy this desire and that condition of mine; make me great; make me a great

Sadhaka, a great Yogin,” etc. It does not use this language of course, but that is what is behind it. It assumes many justifying forms and comes to the Sadhaka in various ways.

The unillumined Mind also surrenders to the Truth but it makes its own conditions. It says to the Truth: “Satisfy my judgment and my opinions.” It demands that the truth should cast itself in mental forms. The vital being insists that the truth should throw itself into its own movement of force. The vital being pulls at the higher Power; it pulls at the vital being of the Guru. Both the mind and the vital beings have got an arriere pensee — a mental reservation in their surrender.

But the psychic Bhakti is not like that. Because the soul is in connection with the Divinity behind, it is capable of true Bhakti. The psychic being has what is called ahaitukī bhaktí. Devotion without any motive. It does not make any demands, it makes on reservations in its surrender.

The psychic being knows how to obey the Truth in the right way. It can give itself up fully to God or to the Guru; and because it gives itself up truly it receives also truly.

When the psychic being comes to the surface it feels sad when the mental, or the vital being, is making a fool of itself. That sadness is purity offended. When the mind is playing its own game, or when the vital being is carried away by its impulses, it is the psychic being which says: “I do not want these things; what am I here for, after all? I am here for the Truth and not for these things,” Psychic sadness is again different from mental dissatisfaction or vital sadness or physical depression.

If the psychic being is strong it makes itself felt in the mental and the vital being, and forces them to change. But if it is weak, the mental and the vital parts take

advantage of its sadness and use it even to their own advantage. A weak psychic being is often an affliction.

Take the case of X. He has a well-developed intellectual being, but his vital is often quite different in its character. At times the psychic being in his case used to force itself to the surface and throw everything into disorder. In Y’s case it was the vital being that dictated to the psychic being. To the protests of the psychic being the vital says: “yes, yes, what you say is all right, but I am also right and what I do is right and necessary.”

When the psychic being is weak it casts only an influence occasionally and then retires behind.

Disciple: But you said just now that the psychic being knows everything and is in communication with the Truth, then why should it be weak? Why can it not force the other parts of nature to obey it?

Sri Aurobindo: If the psychic being is not fully awake, it does not come to the surface. It is very much behind in most people, and when it cannot come fully to the surface I call it “weak,” not that the psychic being itself is weak. It has got everything in it, but when it can’t bring it forward it is called weak.

Sri Aurobindo: The Atman generally means what you imply in English by the word “Spirit”. It is self-existent, conscious, the ānandamaya Being, the Purusha. The Atman is the same in all; it is that which is behind all the manifestation of Nature.

Sri Aurobindo: It has no features. The only thing that can be said about it is: Sat, Chit, Anand.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally it is used to imply the passive state, but sometimes it is used for both. The psychic being is not the same as the Atman. It is what corresponds to the European idea of “Soul”. The Western occultists recognise, at least they used to recognise, three things: 1. Spirit, 2. Soul, 3. Body. The Spirit corresponds to the Atman, and the Soul to the psychic being. It is the Purushta hṛdaye guhāyām, “the Soul in the cave of the heart”.

Disciple: Is the “angustha mātraḥ puruṣaḥ”, spoken of in the Upanishad the same as the psychic being?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be. I think the psychic being was meant by the phrase, “īśvaraḥ sarvabhūtānāṃ hṛddeśe” the Lord seated in the heart of creatures.

Disciple: Is not the psychic being the direct portion of the Divine here? If so, is it the same as the Jiva?

Sri Aurobindo: The Jiva is something more than the psychic being. The psychic being is behind the heart; while the Jiva is high above, connected with the Central Being. It is that which on every level of consciousness becomes the Purusha, the Prakriti and the personalities of Nature. The psychic being, one may say, is the Soul-personality. The psychic being most purely reflects the Divine in the lower triplicity of mind, life and body. There are four higher levels: Sat, Chit, Ananda and Vijnana; they are in Knowledge while below in the three levels — mind, life and body — there is a mixture of Ignorance and knowledge. The psychic being is behind these three — mind, life and body; it is most open to the higher Truth; that is why it is indispensable for the manifestation of the Divine.

The psychic being alone can open itself completely to the Truth. This is so because the movements of the lower parts — mind, life and body — are full of defects, errors and mixtures and, however sincere they may be and however they may try to transform themselves into the movements of the Truth, they cannot do it unless the psychic being comes to their help. Of course,

these lower parts have their own sincerity.

When the psychic being awakens it becomes easy for the Sadhaka to distinguish from within between truth and falsehood, and also to throw out from the nature any wrong movement.

You may write to K one more point: The psychic being refuses to be deceived by appearances. It is not carried away by falsehood. It refuses to be depressed by falsehood, nor does it exaggerate the Truth of what it sees. For example, even if everybody in the world around says: “There is no God”, the psychic being refuses to believe it. It only says: “I know and also, I know because I feel.”

As I said, the psychic being is behind the emotional being in the heart, and when it is awakened it throws out the dross from the emotional being and makes it free from sentimentalism and the lower play of vital emotions. But that is not the dryness of the mind, nor the exaggeration of the vital feelings, it gives the just touch to each emotion.

Disciple: Could one say that in the planes of consciousness above the mind all is the same — the psychic being and the Atman etc.?

Sri Aurobindo: If you mean: “Everything is One” then it merely comes to the old Adwaitavada of Shankaracharya. Really speaking, it is not a matter for the mind to decide. It is a matter of experience. In a certain experience you find that “All is One” and Shankara is true. But there are other experiences in which the Vishishtadwaita and even the Dwaita — the dualistic idea — finds justification. Mind only cuts, differentiates, analyses, represents. You can’t push these questions too far with the mind, otherwise you bring in the old quarrel of the philosophers. You can’t say: “It is that”, or “It must be like this”, or “It can’t be anything else;” for, It may

be all these things at the same time. You can’t approach the highest with thought and express it in speech. Of course, you can express it, but then you diminish it also.

True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become; that is to say, you have the knowledge because you are That. That is the reason why I insist on the attainment of the Supermind as the condition for the experience of the highest Truth because the mind cannot really know it. In the Supermind thoughts convey different aspects of the same Truth,— so different, indeed, that the first aspect is the diametrically opposite of the last — and they are all thrown into the One.

If you have the knowledge by identity you can easily get at my thoughts and my meaning. But I find that the same thing spoken to all carries a different meaning to each.

Sri Aurobindo: In the letter you can explain to K what the psychic feelings are. They are not the same as what ordinary men experience as sentiments and feelings. For example, the ordinary sentimental pity is not the same as what is called “psychic compassion”. The latter is a much deeper compassion than pity. So also psychic love is not the same as what generally passes for love. There is an unselfishness in psychic love; it is always free from all demands — it has no vital claims. Even psychic unselfishness is not the same as the ordinary unselfishness. There is an unselfishness which plays on the surface and shows itself off. It becomes philanthropy — paropkara. But the psychic counterpart of it sees the need of the other person and just satisfies it.

Lastly, lest he should think that the psychic being is something weak and inert let him understand that

the presiding Deity — the adhiṣṭhātrḯ devátā — of the psychic plane is Agni, Fire. It is the Divine Fire of aspirations When the psychic being is awakened the God of the plane is also awakened. And even if the whole being is impure it is this Agni — Fire — which intervenes, removes the obstacles in the way and consumes all the impurities of the being.

There was a letter from a political prisoner who argued with a Sadhaka here about “work” and Sadhana. He pleaded that work should be done as Sadhana and that one could get perfection through work. He quoted the Gita: “yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam”.

Sri Aurobindo: So he thinks that “Kaushalam” in Karma — “Cleverness or efficiency in doing action” — is yoga; does he? In that case any clever man, say, an expert financier, must be a yogi!

We also thought once when we were doing work that perfection would one day come through “action” and we found that it was not possible. We had to give up action in that sense. It does not mean that we give up all action. All of us are doing something or the other here. We have to do action as a sort of exercise — not for its own sake, but as a help to the inner growth.

Sri Aurobindo: The limit is that the work ought not to be allowed to interfere with your yoga. Suppose you take up a work which leaves no time for Sadhana you can’t take it up. That is to say, a work which demands all your attention and energy which you have to do as a “Kartavya” —

“something that should be done” — that work cannot be undertaken by you.

Then there are works that have got a different Dharma; for example, politics. It is on a different plane and you can’t do it successfully with this yoga.

In this yoga you have to be prepared to cut yourself away from what you consider “your” work and “your” creation, when necessary; you have to be merciless in throwing old things away. That is really the meaning of “Nishkama Karma” — that you must have no attachment to anything.

Disciple: Does not a stage come when it becomes necessary to give up all action?

Sri Aurobindo: You cannot make a general rule like that. Some may have to give up all action temporarily,— but for others it may not be necessary at all. I, myself, have been doing work constantly through the Arya and other things. And I stopped the Arya when I found that I had to put myself out to much,— so to say, externalise too much. The second reason was that I required to be drawn within myself in order to develop certain experiences, so that the energy might be used for inward work. In a certain sense I can say that I never stopped doing work — even political work.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so difficult as you think; one can put out his force to support certain movements and oppose others.

Sri Aurobindo: It was confined to India in the beginning but now it is not confined to India.

At first I was not very successful,— very often it seemed to produce no result at all and I found that the work was done afterwards in quite another way than what I

had expected or insisted. The same result came but it arrived in another way. The reason, probably, was that I used to put too much vital force with the Power. Of course,— the vital is quite essential, but now it is pure and subtle vital force.

Disciple: You did it for what purpose — as something necessary, or as an exercise?

Sri Aurobindo: It was shown as something that was to be done. It was not from the Supermind, of course. If it was from there then the full knowledge would be there from the beginning. I did not know what was going to happen. I simply was shown the thing that was to be done and did it.

Disciple: Are there movements or persons, through whom you are working in Indian politics?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. At one time it was X; even I worked through Y for a short time.

Sri Aurobindo: It was so difficult to have sympathy with either side. But it would have been a great disaster if Germany had won.

Sri Aurobindo: It was merely due to their hatred of the British. When the Germans were marching upon Paris I felt something saying, “They must not take Paris.” And as I was consulting a map I almost felt the place where they would be stopped.

It is curious that several things that my mind was hammering at got done after I had dropped the idea altogether. At one time I had an idea that France must

get back Alsace-Lorraine. It was almost an obsession with me and when I had ceased to think about it, the thing got done.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. You must have desire. There is no question of “success” also. There is a certain possibility and you have to make an attempt to work it out disinterestedly like a yogi.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? It has gone the way that was intended. There is nothing good or bad, or moral or immoral. The question is: “Was it intended?” It may be accompanied by so many results good, bad and indifferent. The question is: “What is intended by the Above?”

The experience of humanity would have remained incomplete without the experiment in Russia. Now they have got the form. It depends upon the Russians what they will do with it.

I find it always difficult to work in Indian politics. The difficulty is that the vessels don’t hold the Power, they are so weak. If the amount of force that is spent on India were spent on a European nation you would find it full of creative activities of various kinds. But here, in India, it is like sending a current of electricity through a sleeping man. He suddenly starts up, begins jerking and throwing his arms and feet about and then drops down again. He is not fully awake.

Sri Aurobindo: Due to tremendous Tamas. Don’t you feel it all around, that Tamas? It is that which frustrates all efforts.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the result of various causes. It was already settling — I mean, the forces of disintegration and inertia before the British came. And after their coming the whole Tamas has settled like a solid block. There must be some awakening before something substantial can be done. Otherwise, India has got very good men; you had Tilak, Das, Vivekananda — none of them an ordinary man and yet you see the Tamas there.

Disciple: Is there any truth in the idea that every great Vibhuti who brings anything new into manifestation builds, first of all, what is called Yogapitha — “a seat of yoga”! Each man who goes by his path reaches that “yogapitha” and each Sadhaka has his place there. When once such a Pitha — pedestal — is made then anyone who comes afterwards finds it very easy to reach it because there is a passage already made.

Sri Aurobindo: I can tell you I am building nothing over there. I do not know what is to come. If there is anything in the Supramental I don’t know it. You are not always allowed to know it. It is a plane where you find “what is” — there is no necessity to build or construct any thing there.

I know some people make such constructions as the Yoga-pitha and so on. One can always find these things, because many things from the mental plane are always trying to realise themselves here. These constructions are generally on the mental plane and they may even have some truth behind them — not in the forms and constructions themselves. But even where there is some truth behind them it gets mixed up with many other things which sometimes falsifies the truth behind it.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is for this reason that I am not for rushing to work at once. Such a thing would not be the

expression of the Truth. We have to wait till the Truth through us finds its own expression. I myself got the idea of the Supramental after ten years of Sadhana. The Supramental does not come in the beginning but at the end. It is a progressive Truth.

Disciple: He saw a yogapuri — a city of yoga — in which there were different circles of Sadhaks round a Guru in the centre of each group. Vibhuti wanted to join the circle but he was not allowed because he had not the “password”. There were watchmen also.

Sri Aurobindo: It looks more of the vital plane than anything else. There are people who get symbolic vision and when they see the work not accomplished they generally see it as an unfinished building, or a building where workmen are still working. That does not correspond to any building in the Supramental. That is only a symbolic way of representing the yoga and its condition and even at that it is not exact but gives only a general idea.

Sri Aurobindo: At the time I had some construction in my mind. Of course, there was something behind it which I knew to be true. Even then I was not sure that it would work out successfully. Any way, I wanted to give it a trial and gave that idea to Motilal. Then he took up the idea and, as you know, he took it up with all his vital being and in that egoistic way. So the vital forces found their chance. They tried to take possession of the work and of the workers.

It is after several such lessons that I had to give up the idea of rushing into work. This yoga is not a cut-out system. It is a growth by experience.

Sri Aurobindo: No. I did nothing of the kind. The only thing I did was to put the force so that those who were worth anything should be drawn out of it. I have forgotten all about it. In fact, I have long ago put away Chandernagore from my atmosphere. There was nothing of the Supramental there.

This evening a very feeling letter written by Vivekananda in 1900 from California to Miss. Josephine Macleod was read to Sri Aurobindo. The relevant points in it are here reproduced.

After all, Joe, I am only a boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the banyan at Dakshineshwar. That is my true nature, doing good and so forth are all super-impositions. Now I again hear the voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking, love dying, work becoming tasteless — the glamour is off life.

Yes, I come, Nirvana is before me, I feel it at times, the same infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath.

Since the beginning of this year, I have not dictated anything in India. You know that..

I am drifting again in the warm heart of the river, I dare not make a splash with my hand or feet for fear of breaking the wonderful stillness, stillness that makes you feel sure it (the world) is an illusion.

Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance

the thirst of power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come, Mother....a spectator, no more an actor ..............things are seen and felt like shadows.

Disciple: The question is: Is Vivekananda expressing only a passing mood because of his innate preference for Vairagya or was ambition really an element mixed up in his work. I always felt that there was a double strain in his nature,— he was drawn between work and Sadhana.

Disciple: It is quite understandable that he observed some ambition lurking in his work. I do not think it is only a passing mood. Simultaneously with the Higher Consciousness one can see these things in one’s nature.

Sri Aurobindo: These things, like ambition etc., are not easily removed. They remain in the nature and are difficult to get rid of. Even when the Higher Consciousness comes they can continue with the lower nature.

Disciple: But he says in his writings and speeches that he was conscious of a Higher Power driving him into activity.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite possible; he was conscious of such a Power driving him in spite of his weakness, but that does not mean that his own ambition did not mix with the working of the Power.

Disciple: But later on in his letter he speaks of being freed after death or “freed in the body”. That implies that he did not attain liberation till then.

Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of liberation: one is when you drop the body, that is to say, you may have attained liberation in consciousness yet something in the nature continues in the old bondage and that ignorance is usually supported by the body-consciousness. When the body drops the man becomes entirely free or liberated.

Another kind of liberation is what is called “JivanMukti”; one realises the liberation even while remaining in the body.

Disciple: But I believe there is a distinction between “Videha Mukti” and “Jivan Mukti”.

Sri Aurobindo: No. “Jivan Mukti” is the same as “Videha Mukti”. The example of Janaka is usually quoted and the current idea is that “Jivan Mukti” is more difficult to attain than the liberation that is attained either by renunciation or by giving up the body.

Disciple: Souls like Vivekananda come down for a specific work in this world and after doing their work they again ascend to their high status. Is this true?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There is a plane of liberation from which beings can come down here and perhaps that is what Ramakrishna meant by saying there are “NityaMukta” souls — souls who are eternally liberated,— who can go up and down the ladder of existence.

Sri Aurobindo: No. On the other planes there are only types and they cannot evolve. If they want to evolve to a condition higher than theirs they must take birth here on earth — that is to say, take a human body. Even the gods are compelled to take human birth if they want to evolve.

Disciple: Why should the gods want to evolve? They must be feeling quite happy in their own state.

Sri Aurobindo: They may get tired of their happiness, and may want something higher, for example, they may want Nirvana.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no one in Nirvana to get tired! A was asking me the same question: “who has the

experience of Nirvana?” If there is no “being” in that state the answer is: “nobody” has it. Something in you drops off and Nirvana takes its place. In fact, there is no “getting” but blotting out of “what one is”. A was probably thinking that he would be sitting With his mental personality somewhere looking at Nirvana and saying: “Ah! this is Nirvana!” The reply is: so long as “you” are there, no Nirvana can be. One has to get rid of all attachments and all personalities before Nirvana can come and that is extremely difficult for one attached to his mental personality like A.

Disciple: If Nirvana is such a negative state, what is the difference between one who has it and one who has not?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. You find the difference because it is “you” who get blotted out in Nirvana and not anybody else. (After a pause)

This letter makes at least something precise about Vivekananda’s experience because what he speaks of here is the condition of Nirvana accompanied by a sense of illusion of the world.

Disciple: This division of consciousness into two, one feeling fundamentally free and the other imperfect or impure is a very common experience.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not only common, it is the ordinary experience and in order that one may be able to act without ambition one should be able to take action lightly. That is to say, one should not be perturbed if it is done or not done. It is something like the Gita’s “inaction in action” and yet one must act, as the Gita says.

The test is that even if the work taken away or destroyed it must make no difference to the condition of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: Nirvana, as I know it, is a necessary experience in order to get rid of the nature-personality which is subject to ignorance. You cease to be the small individual ego in a vast world. You throw away that and become the One in Nirvana. Nirvana is a passage, for passing into a condition in which your true individuality can be attained. That true individuality is not a small, narrow and limited self contained in the world, but is vast and infinite and can contain the world within it self; you can remain in the world and yet be above it, so to say. To get rid of the separative personality in nature Nirvana is a powerful experience.

Disciple: Does one realise oneself as an individual, that is to say, as the true Jiva after Nirvana?

Sri Aurobindo: One realises oneself as the One in all, and also the One as many and yet that One is also He.

Disciple: And we are supposed or expected to do everything for you and the divine Mother. But in our nature we are full of ego and ignorance. So our surrender is also full of ego.

Sri Aurobindo: But you are supposed to make the surrender without the ego-sense. The law is that you should get rid of attachment and desire in your surrender.

Disciple: But there are people who want to force their attitude and ideas on others.

Sri Aurobindo: These are the people who have the idea of “our work”, “our Ashram”. That is a form of ego and that must go.

Disciple: They even want others to accept you as the Guru and Avatar by physical force, (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and Y could contact the Consciousness only when he had gone from here.

The kind of thing is a great difficulty. There are some people here who, I believe, can’t help propagandising. When R came here he was able to feel something behind all the activity and he was progressing in his own way quite well. But one lecture from Y and the whole thing was upset.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, always. Instead of allowing the man to proceed on his own lines there is an effort to force things and viewpoints to which he is not accustomed. It always interferes with the work.

Disciple: Something should be done, I think, to stop V from carrying on propaganda.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you think he can be stopped? (laughter) I have tried and found that nothing makes any impression, (laughter)

Disciple: One day while V was on gate-duty X told him that the Mother’s instruction to all Sadhakas on gateduty

is that they should not sit in the chair or read or write while on duty.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it was true. We know N and others used to continue sitting in the chairs and reply to visitor.

Disciple: When X had given the instructions he asked V why he was not carrying them out. V said: “That is my difficulty.” (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: If you tell these people to go somewhere else and start an Ashram of their own, they won’t do that.

Disciple: But when I put the question of difficulty to you it referred to my inner difficulties,— these were not meant, I am afraid.

Disciple: It is very difficult for a man like me to accept what these people want one to accept. I can accept you as the guide and Guru. But I must have my spiritual experience to believe things.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not always necessary to have the experience in order to believe. There are many people who believe on faith before they realise. But the difficulty comes when you want to force your faith on others. One can say: “I believe that so and so is an Avatar.” But one can’t say: “If you don’t believe in him I will beat you.” (laughter) Then there are others who want to go into the yoga with their families. There are husbands who get angry with their wives because they can’t take to yoga with them, (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Going to heaven with the family may be possible, but not into yoga. In the pursuit of a religious life you can have “Budo, Budi” — “old man and old dame”, as D. L. Rai says.

Sri Aurobindo: Then there are some who tell a new comer, when he is refused admission, to stick on!

Disciple: Yes. X gives his own instance and says it was a case of test. Test of faith! “If you have faith you will be admitted.”

Sri Aurobindo: In most cases the people who persist are not those who have a real call for the yoga from something deep in them. In most cases it is obstinacy. I particularly remember one case in which obstinacy was wonderful. There are others in whom the desire to come and remain here is a mere surface movement, while in others it is there because they are lunatics or eccentrics. Even if you tell them to seek another Guru they won’t listen to you! (A pause)

Disciple: But this letter of Vivekananda is a very sincere letter. It is easy to understand his difficulty.

One cannot have freedom from ambition and other weaknesses unless one has the dynamic presence of the Divine all the time, or readily available whenever needed.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is one way; or, as I said, if you can establish peace, equality and calm right up to your physical consciousness, so that nothing in you stirs whatever happens then you can be free from ambition.

These things, as I said, are very difficult to get rid of. When I had the Nirvana experience at Baroda I thought at that time that I had no ambition left — at least personal ambition — in the work that I was doing for the country. Then I used to here a voice within me telling me all about my inner movement. When I reached Calcutta [1908] I heard this voice pointing out things within me which showed that there was personal ambition of which I was till then quite unconscious. So these things can hide for a very long time.

It is like the contest for Congress Presidentship in which both sides maintain that it is not ambition that is moving them, but the sense of duty, call of the cause, principles etc.! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: In the Puranic sense everything comes out of the Brahman and is withdrawn into it. And the popular idea is that it will be projected in the same way as before.

Q: If dissolution is a fact, what is the relation between it and the new creation which follows? Tantra believes that after Maha Pralaya, the great dissolution, the new creation builds itself upon the Sanskaras — impressions and moulds of the past.

Whether we believe in the scientific theory of material evolution, or in the material spiritual theory, as soon as we take matter as the basis or one of the bases we come to believe in a beginning and it seems to me that it is impossible to avoid this conclusion of the mind. It seems the ancients answered this demand of the mind by dissolution — creation theory. Even if there be no absolute beginning there must be some satisfying knowledge which reveals the secret of creation. The theory which calls the manifestation God’s play or Lila seems to answer only one side of the question. It explains the purpose; but what about the process? Perhaps the mind may not demand a clear cut answer if it once has the experience that everything is a play of the spirit. Is that so? or, is there an answer to this? What is the cycle and a Yuga?

Sri Aurobindo: There is no time at which it becomes this

world. These are mental questions and solutions will be mental and many — each equally true.

Power of creation is eternal in Divine and so there is no point of time at which it acts. It is more rational to grant that it is eternal and.always active.

Whether it will put out the same form, or some other form — it depends. It can be the same, in which case it will come into being at a higher stage of evolution opening up new possibilities and powers for mankind. It may not be mere repetition of this material formation.

Or it can be quite another formation. “Why this Lila?” you can ask. The questioner seems to think that on the higher level there will be a mental answer to this mental question. That is not true.

And this idea that matter is something different from the Spirit is also not true. It is One thing. Even science now finds it so. It is the One Spirit. You can say: in Matter the condensation of consciousness takes place. At each stage of manifestation there is a different vibration giving rise to different elements Man is not a pure mental consciousness. He is a product of evolution from Matter to Life, from Life, to Mind.

A telegram from a mentally deranged Sadhaka became the topic of this evening. The Sadhaka in question wanted to die. The suggestion of death, it was thought, was due to some hereditary poison in the blood. These kinds of poisons often attack the brain.

Sri Aurobindo: It is these people who also get a sense of “sin” and the tendency to repent and humble themselves before others. Also they have very big ideas about themselves. They think they are very important in the universal scheme. (A pause)

This yoga, to be done well, requires perfect balance. Therefore, those who have merely a general call for yoga should not go in for it; because it opens a possibility for the Higher Consciousness to work as well as a possibility for the powers of the vital world to come and take possession. If a man has not got the perfect balance, it becomes easier for these powers to take possession of him. Sometimes the man who has no faith in things invisible is much better off than the man who has faith in them, or the man who has a tendency towards occultism. He is generally free — comparatively free — from attacks from the subtle planes because he is not open to them and so does not accept them, while the man who believes in

them gives them a chance. In this yoga you must have a “sane” mind.

Disciple: The general idea is that unless one has got a “screw loose” in his brain one would not come for yoga, (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? If a screw is loose then the machine is not doing its work at all!

Disciple: The idea seems to be “the more loose screws” the better chance for yoga, (laughter)

Disciple: I did not mean that. But does it mean that a sane man is more fit for yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course not; when I speak of want of balance in these people, I do not mean they are “insane”. It only means that their development is not proportionate, it is lopsided or there is a twist somewhere in their nature which prevents the harmonious development of all the parts.

That was the thing that saved me all through, I mean the perfect balance. First of all I believed that nothing was impossible, and at the same time I could question everything. If I had believed in everything that came I would have been like Bijoy Krishna Goswami.

Sri Aurobindo: A perfect yogi can have strong imagination and equally strong reason. Imagination can believe in everything while reason works out the logical steps. Even in the case of scientists you find they have a very strong imagination.

Sri Aurobindo: Imagination is the power of conceiving things beyond the ordinary experience of life.

Disciple: Does it correspond to Truth? or is there a higher faculty of which imagination is the representative in the mind?

Sri Aurobindo: It ultimately becomes “inspiration”, when it ascends higher. The purer it becomes the nearer it gets to Truth. For instance, in the case of poets, generally it is the inspired imagination that works. What you meant to say about the scientist was perhaps “intuition” (Pause)

The capital period of my intellectual development was when I could see clearly that, what the intellect said might be correct and not correct, that what the intellect justified was true and its opposite also was true. I never admitted a truth in the mind without simultaneously keeping it open to the contrary of it.

You see, Mind means infinite possibility. Reason or intelligence chooses one to the exclusion of all the other possibilities. And it is reason which gives value and selects. What it selects is like a law in science; you accept it because it explains most of the phenomena. In the mind we accept one possibility and suppress the others and so we see the ground for the view we hold and other grounds are suppressed. Or the intellect goes on in a futile round and justifies the choice which has already been made by some other part of the being.

The intellect is merely selective. I felt this very clearly for a long time. And the first result was that the prestige of the intellect was gone. As you go higher up a wider movement develops which reconciles all contraries.

Then you see the Forces that are behind mental ideas. Of course, it is no use telling this to the ordinary

man as he would be in a most hopeless confusion if he saw everything as mere possibilities. For instance, you would be absolutely confounded if I placed before you all the possibilities.

Disciple: When all intellectual operations appear merely as dealing with possibilities then what is to be selected and how is one to act?

Sri Aurobindo: There is no need to be puzzled. Simply look at them, watch them, see what they are and what is behind them.

For instance, I can laugh at Shankara’s Mayavada or Mahatma’s views; but I can see the truth that is behind them both. I know the place they occupy in the play of world-forces; for, it really comes to that.

Sri Aurobindo: Everything can be done. You can do it within your limits; you can correct the exaggerations of the parts in you that are well-developed and develop those that are suppressed and bring about a balance in your being.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no argument advanced against Abraham’s theory. I am sure his intuition is correct and it will be much more easily worked out by him when the science and experiment are settled so that anyone can do the things. But, generally, in a discovery a man works by an intuition and the man who first sees the thing can very easily work it out.

I am also pretty sure that the idea that diseases are due to electrical vibrations and that they can be cured by

producing certain other more powerful vibrations also correct.

Apart from the psychic causes, in the pure physical body it works by vibrations. In yogic practice also an electrical phenomenon generally occurs And when the Power descends some sort of electrical vibrations take place in the physical system. It is by that movement that the diseases are cured — by that the harmony is again restored.

There was a discussion between two disciples — one of them was a doctor. The doctor’s idea was that in Samadhi the physical mind is still, and if we look only to the physical body, then it seems that the venous blood collects in the brain and brings about a sort of anaesthesia of the brain. When the brain is thus completely quieted down then the mind — the mental consciousness — is released from the entanglement of body. It can then experience more freely the other levels of consciousness.

In between, a letter was read from a Sadhaka complaining about the bad condition of his Sadhana and asking permission to come to Pondicherry.

Sri Aurobindo: Tell him that all the Sadhakas get difficulties in Sadhana and periods of depression come to each one. That is no reason to run down here. Even those who are here get periods of depression. One should be able to go through such trials. Sadhana never moves in a line —

there are always ups and downs. It is not a work of days and months but of years. These periods come generally when something new is going to begin in Sadhana, some opening to a new plane, or some such thing.

The reason why he is not getting knowledge, probably, is that his mind is active. So long as the mind is active higher Knowledge cannot come. He can get mental knowledge, of course.

Ask him to make his mind passive and open to the higher Knowledge. Let him stop the egoistic activity in his mind. When I ask him to be passive I do not mean that he should repress the thoughts that come to his mind; he should rather separate himself as the mental Purusha and watch the thoughts as happening in him, but not as his. He has to watch them and reject those that are to be rejected.

Disciple: Many people mistake passivity for inertia. I mistook it for a long time. I used to remain passive when I got an illness and then I found that I was consenting to it.

Sri Aurobindo: Real passivity is openness to the Higher Force; it is not inertia.

Do you know of a Japanese healer, Dr. Kobayeshi, a famous surgeon, who is a Yogi following the Amitabha Buddha school of Sadhana? During his medical practice he found that the method he was following was not correct. So he followed an inner process. He makes the patients sit in meditation with him and asks them to concentrate on the navel and to aspire that the Light may come down and set right the affected organ. By now he has cured thousands of patients; of course, his personal influence is indispensable in bringing down the Light.

He has cured tumours and many uterine complaints, he has even cured cancer. He is especially successful in curing diseases of women. His theory is that the disease is due to a passive congestion in the affected part. That is to say, the nerves there get congested and the vital force is not able to reach that part. What the Light does is that it brings about a subtle and quick vibration in the affected part, thereby restoring normal circulation. But whatever the theory, this is a method of curing diseases by pure, subtle force. Something from the occult plane comes down and removes the obstacle from the physical plane.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is not Coué’s method. Coué gives the suggestion which works out in the patient; while this is a direct, occult method.

Sri Aurobindo: I can’t say. What I think is that some occult force comes down and works out the disease. But it is very difficult to say what exactly happens on the physical plane.

Probably, the Hatha Yogins used to do what this Japanese doctor is doing, with their knowledge of the “vital-physical” currents. For instance, they could set right all the disorders below the navel by controlling the Vyana — the vital current that works in the whole system. They would find out which Prana — vital current — is less, send the required current of vital energy which would work the disease out of the system.

(After a pause) I was thinking of the “carbon-dioxide” explanation of Samadhi. It may be perfectly true so for as a particular kind of concentration — Samadhi — is concerned. For example, there is a state in which a complete withdrawal into a certain aspect of the Infinite

takes place. It is attained by stilling the mind — even the physical mind — altogether. But there are other kinds of concentrations — Samadhis — where that explanation would not apply at all. In such concentrations the mind is quite clear, in fact, ihe mind can be very active and there is no carbon-dioxide in the brain.

Disciple: What part does breathing exercise — Pranayama — play in bringing about the higher consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: It sets the Pranic vital-currents free and removes dullness of the brain so that the higher consciousness can come down. Pranayama — does not bring dullness in the brain. My own experience, on the contrary, is that brain becomes illumined. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for about five hours in the day,— three hours in the morning and two in the evening. I found that the mind began to work with great illumination and power. I used to write poetry in those days. Before the Pranayama practice, usually I wrote five to eight lines per day; and about two hundred lines in a month. After the practice I could write 200 lines within half an hour. That was not the only result. Formerly my memory was dull. But after this practice 1 found that when the inspiration came I could remember all the lines in their order and write them down correctly at any time. Along with this enhanced functioning I could see an electrical activity all round the brain, and I could feel that it was made up of a subtle substance. I could feel everything as the working of that substance. That was far from your carbon-dioxide!

Disciple: Did you find any change in mental activity when breathing completely stopped?

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know about complete stopping of the breath, but at the time of Pranayama the breath becomes something regular and rhythmic.

Disciple: How is it that Pranayama develops mental capacities? What part does it play in bringing about the higher consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the Pranic vital-currents which sustain mental activity. When these currents are changed by Pranayama, they bring about a change in the brain. The cause of dullness of the brain is some obstruction in it which does not allow the higher thought to be communicated to it. When this obstruction is removed the higher mental being is able to communicate its action easily to the brain. When the higher consciousness is attained the brain does not become dull. My experience is that it becomes illumined.

All the exercises, like breathing-practices, are only devices which something that is behind them is using for manifesting itself.

On the physical plane also, it is nothing else but certain devices — a system of notation — that we employ. But we give too much importance to the form of the device, because we think the physical to be the most real. If we only knew that the entire physical world is made up of force and that it is nothing else but the working of a certain consciousness and power using certain devices then we would not be deceived.

Disciple: Is it true that when the Higher Consciousness comes the brain stops thinking?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? The brain is not the seat of thinking! It is the mind that thinks, the brain only reacts to it. There is a parallelism between the movements of the brain and those of the higher mind. But the brain is only a communicating channel, it is only a support for the higher activity. If the mind is passive it receives things from above — from the Higher Mind — and passes them on to the brain.

Now, if the brain is dull, the mind cannot transmit

its action correctly, it does it imperfectly. Sometimes — not always — the lapse in Sadhana also is due to the brain getting tired.

Sri Aurobindo: No, in the bright period the Progress is maintained. But when the physical brain flags and refuses to support the effort of the will and mind, then you find a dull and Tamasic condition in Sadhana intervenes.

Disciple: Physiologically, the nerve-endings get disconnected with the consciousness, and as they are not obliged to do any work they recuperate themselves. All their normal functions are suspended during sleep, so they get rest. These are various theories of sleep in medical science.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know what it is physiologically, but it is a condition of Tamasic withdrawal into the inner consciousness. It is likely that as the normal functions are suspended the nerves recoup themselves.

Disciple: Do you think that such a retirement into the inner consciousness is a necessary condition for maintaining the body?

Sri Aurobindo: No. It is merely a habit, if you like, a bad habit acquired by man when he was living with the animals, as one writer says.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course. Even food is a habit. But that does not mean that you can stop it today. By habit it has become indispensable. If you stop it suddenly your body may break down. You would die if you had no other force which could replace the one you derived from sleep.

Disciple: When one sleeps one gets dreams also. Have these dreams anything to do with the brain?

Sri Aurobindo: Dreams have nothing to do with the brain. A dream is merely a confused transcript in sleep of something that happens behind. The thing gets confused because the controlling mind is not there. All sorts of things rush up from the passive memory, events of the day, impressions of the mind. If the mind remains conscious in dreams, you can know the working that takes place behind. Some dreams correctly represent what is taking place behind — such dreams are clear and cogent.

As I said about Samadhi, so also about dreams, it is very difficult to say what happens exactly on the physical plane. All things on the physical plane are merely devices — they are a system of notation,— just like the wireless or telegraphic notation. It is a convenient device for sending messages, but often we get too busy with the device and mistake it for the thing that it is behind the device.

And this applies to all scientific discoveries. For instance, when you say “hydrogen and oxygen in certain proportions form water”, the statement does not explain anything. It only state a fact. You do not know what water is. It only means there is something behind which manifests itself as water under those conditions.

It is the same with the theory of “electrons”. So far as the physical facts are concerned the theory may be perfectly true. But why should the blessed electrons, which are fundamentally the same substance, form totally different elements and compounds by the change of arrangement of the same number?

Disciple: Not only that, but the addition or subtraction of one electron changes radically the properties — that is, the nature — of the substance. And even with the same number of electrons a change in the arrangement

alters radically the substance. So much so that one substance is a poison and the other is not.

Sri Aurobindo: So I say there is something behind the device which already pre-exists on some plane and it is that which adopts the device in order to manifest itself. But the device is not the reality. The power from behind can change the device. Of course, the power working from behind comes down on the physical plane through the device, and so people generally think that it is the device which is responsible for the manifestation.

As an instance of the change of device I told you about Agamya Guru Paramahamsa. He could stop his heart-beats and go on talking and working like other men. Now, ordinarily, when the heart stops the man dies, or gets into a cataleptic Samadhi. But in his case it was not so.

Sri Aurobindo: I can’t say, I must try and see. Once I tried for two days with the result that on the third day I slept for nine hours.

Disciple: Is there no difference between your sleep and that of an ordinary person?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not all like ordinary sleep,— though it is that for the most part. The only time that I very nearly conquered sleep was in jail. I used to keep awake for two days and sleep on the third. I did it for ten days.

A letter from Bhupal Chandra Bose; Sri Aurobindo’s

father-in-law, relating the illness of another son-in-law of his. It is a case of tuberculosis.

Sri Aurobindo to X: You can write to him that I will do my best to help him, though under the circumstances it is difficult for me to do so. But a change of climate might help him.

Disciple: Dr. Matthews, a specialist in T.B., says that it is not medicine but social surroundings, the economic condition, that must change for a cure. Air, light, food, walking these are more important than medicine.

Sri Aurobindo: His ideas are quite sane. This disease starts generally when there is “psychic depression”.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the depression of the inner being, (laughter — as the question was evaded)

There is something in us that takes the joy of life. I don’t mean the vital joy. Normally, it is a certain inner happiness,— you can’t really call it happiness,— it is a certain inner joy and well-being kept up by the psychic being. When that gets affected then there is psychic depression.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, there are so many causes: some shock, some great sorrow, a weighing down by anxiety, over-work, care or trouble, or some affection of a vital organ of the physical system — any of these can bring about psychic depression.

This “psychic depression” comes in a very strange way. Suppose you keep an artist in very

ugly surroundings, then his psychic being may get depressed.

Disciple: If it is a question of giving psychic force to the patient, then I believe it is comparatively easy work for you.

Sri Aurobindo: But I can’t be all the time putting force. The difficulty is that we are not known to each other. This case seems more hopeful than that of Y because here at least I can put the force. In the case of Y also we were not known to each other. But when I send the help I find there is something very thick in the atmosphere there and so a great pressure has to be put before it can be pierced through and the resistance overcome. Perhaps there is somebody in the family who resists. The third reason for the unsuccessful result is that the man is not accustomed to the kind of inner exercise involved in receiving psychic help.

Such cases at a distance are difficult. It is easier in the case of a person who is near or somebody who has faith, or psychic contact.

Sri Aurobindo: There are many ways. If the man is vitally strong then his vital force can help remove the psychic depression. These forces in the inner being can always mutually react.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the life-force in man; there is a certain energy you feel within you which meets the shocks of life. It is that which gives you capacity to overcome obstacles. It is very necessary for ordinary men. It can pull you through a prolonged illness. As the Upanishad says: “pranasyedam vase sarvam-tridive yat pratisthiatm” “Whatever there is in the world is subject to Prana,— the

vital force.” Even mental activities are due to Prana, life-force. It is the life-force that keeps the world going.

You have to draw the vital energy from the infinite ocean of universal vital force that is all around you.

Sri Aurobindo: You have something more than your hands and feet, which from within you can lay hold on the vital energy.

Disciple: How to draw the vital force? I mean I don’t know how to draw it consciously.

Sri Aurobindo: What you can do unconsciously you can always teach yourself to do consciously.

There are two main ways: 1. Passive and 2. active. In the first you remain passive, waiting for the vital force to enter into you; then you find it rushes into you. In the other method you lay hold on the force and draw it in.

Disciple: Suppose a man is weak and you give him spiritual help; can it do harm to him?

Sri Aurobindo: No. Weakness does not matter. But if there is anything that obstructs the working of the Higher Power then it may harm him.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the Higher Power that harms; it is the fight that harms, because the struggle is made more acute on account of the hostile forces. It is always safer to avoid such conflicts. (After a pause) If I were to put force on Y probably the first result would be that he would be more mad, because those force that posses him now would naturally get angry. In the case of Z also the difficulty was that he was completely possessed by the hostile force.

A telegram came from Calcutta containing discouraging news about the health of the patient. When the doctor said that he might be going through his last stages, Sri Aurobindo said:

After seeing the photograph I had little hope. In cases like this one there are two conditions necessary: 1 personal contact and readiness to receive the help; 2. the descent of the Higher Power which does not care for the circumstances. But conditions are not yet ready for such a descent.

Disciple (doctor): This is a preventable disease and can be easily prevented by improving the general condition of hygiene and sanitation.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is true; but our town — life with its crowding and the wear and tear of modern life hardly creates the vital and psychic atmosphere for a long span of lite or vital healthfullness.

Disciple: In some countries in Europe — specially Scotland — there are very efficient organisation. For example, in Edinburgh they supply sputum pots for every man in the family. It is then examined and those persons suspected of being affected are segregated, treated and cured. This sputum is again examined and when it is found to be normal then the people are allowed to go and live with the family.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, you can raise the standard of health and eliminate these diseases to a very great extent by these means.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, no; death is far too ingenious for that. That is never the way to conquer death. Nature is not so mechanical, she is a conscious being. If you try to circumvent her in one way she circumvents you in another. All this sanitation and hygiene etc. of yours can deal with is the physical circumstances of health. But they cannot

get at the vital forces which are behind and of which the physical circumstances are mere instruments. During the war there was a perfect organisation to prevent epidemics, and that succeeded well. But after the war they broke out with great force. All that is not conquering death.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. If you know Hatha Yoga you can keep the body safe against disease. You can also reduce the slow process of ageing by supplying the vital force. The difficulty is you can’t be always in Samadhi.

Disciple: Tibbati Baba says that man can conquer death by taking a certain medicine.

Sri Aurobindo: With apologies to our friend, the doctor, I must say it is more likely to kill you sooner.

Disciple: But he says also that it is very difficult for a man to take it — the condition is that he must observe Brahmacharya — celibacy.

Disciple: Yes, and there will be some other conditions also which it will be quite impossible to fulfils.

Sri Aurobindo: We have to find out,— we don’t know. The Mahatmas are said to have conquered death.

Disciple: They can be seen in Vaishakha Valley according to a recent publication of the Theosophists.

Sri Aurobindo: And, it seems, he has been seen by some people in Gujarat — somewhere.

Disciple: Formerly, according to an article by Mr. Hiren Dutt, there was nothing but gas on this earth.

Disciple: Then he became a bag — and remained in his kāraṇa śarīra — causal body — and from that condition he developed into something like a barrel without hands and feet.

Sri Aurobindo: But there are cycles of evolution, not one evolutionary movement.

Disciple: Yes, many cycles have taken place in this world-evolution and different races have their roots.

Sri Aurobindo: There are seven root races and other are sub-races; and, I believe, the sixth root race was being prepared in California, and then it has shifted perhaps to Australia.

Disciple: Their theory is that there was a great civilisation on the continent of Atlantis.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is so because, perhaps, the Master says. But apart from that, they take their stand on geology and the theory of evolution. Once there was an idea that civilisation is only three or four thousand years old. Now people are forced to change their ideas.

Disciple: But the details about the last civilisation and the Mahatmas — are they all true?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by “true”? On the vital plane there is nothing that you cannot see: you can recast

the whole history of the world. It is not the mental plane — really speaking it is the mental-vital. I was in that condition for ten days and any number of things came at that time.

Sri Aurobindo: There is always some truth at the bottom. For instance, there is every likelihood that the continent of Atlantis had a great civilisation. So also the idea of evolution is true as far as physical evolution is concerned. But the fourth and fifth root race and the other details which are given are not certain.

That is the difficulty: to isolate the true intuition from the mixture — mental as well as vital, It would be quite another matter if one could keep the mind completely passive. But, evidently, that is impossible. The mind enters so much and also the vital being — they are both great and active creators.

Sri Aurobindo: Again, what do you mean by “true”? Something that you see is true somewhere — on some other plane,— some of those things are probabilities, some are only tendencies trying to realise themselves. But it may not be true for this earth-plane.

The question this evening was whether Coué’s method could be used by a Sadhaka of this yoga and also what attitude one must keep when diseases came. In many families in India some kind of illness is a normal feature and one has to be always attending to the patient.

Disciple: Is there any objection to using Dr. Coué’s method for curing disease?

Sri Aurobindo: No, there is not the slightest objection to using it. Only, you must know that you can’t auto-suggest yourself into the Supermind, because that is not so easy. That is to say, that method won’t do for this yoga. If you constantly go on suggesting to yourself “I am pure” — you would not automatically become pure. There is the question of facing facts. You have to see what is impure in you, then call down the Higher Power and pray to Her to purify you.

In Coué’s method there is a sharp distinction between will and imagination. You must know what “will” is. Coué’s idea is not the same as our idea of “will”. “Will” is not mental effort, it is not the vital push which men use in general to satisfy their desires. It is not strong wishing either; “will” is not a struggling, striving and unquiet thing. It is calm. When it is calm it is really a call for the Higher Power to come down and act. There is a “will” which works by dominating over Nature. Another kind of “will” does not so much dominate as aspires in a prayerful mood for the Higher Power to come down. The highest will is the divine will. It is that which is indispensable to all success, it acts automatically.

Disciple: For the cure of the disease, by any method whatsoever, is not faith necessary?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be used to a certain extent in the beginning but not to the end. His method is not universal. It does not succeed in all cases. In fact, it depends upon hypnotising the unconscious. But in some people’s case

the unconscious refuses the suggestion, so it does not succeed.

In our yoga we have to grow more and more conscious, so that the subconscious also, in our case, becomes wide-awake. Besides, the aim of our yoga is not to find out the most efficient method of healing diseases so much as to change the entire consciousness — even the physical — in order that disease may not came at all. The entire being must be so transformed that disease becomes impossible.

Sri Aurobindo: Activity is not incompatible with our yoga. The action to be done should proceed on the basis of peace and knowledge. It must be deliberate and calm. One can take up action in which many men are not concerned — which depends upon one’s own self for its performance. For instance, intellectual work and physical work can be done in this yoga. There may come a time when all action has to be abandoned — such a stage has a temporary utility. In that period one has to do intensive concentrated Sadhana.

Secondly, when one rises to another plane of consciousness, one finds the whole viewpoint about things has completely changed. In that condition one cannot continue the same intellectual activity as before. One has to wait till the higher consciousness begins to act. Of course, when the entire being is transformed then one has to accept all the planes of life and manifest the higher consciousness in life.

A well-trained intellect and a strong vital being are a great hindrance as well as a great help in this yoga. They are helpful because they render the

being wide, and allow the higher activity easily. For instance, if the intellect is well-trained, accurate, and can arrange things, is plastic and elastic, then the Sadhaka can understand the working of the Higher Power, arrange his experience, discriminate and so on. But intellect can also be an obstacle because it tends to be an independent plane of consciousness. It may be unwilling to let go its control or hold. It may continue making efforts for the higher knowledge in which case the latter can never develop. It can hamper the progress by doubt, denial and refusal to give up its control. The same is the case with a strong vital being. If it is transparent and pure it is a very great help. But if there is something impure in it which refuses to give itself up to the Higher Power, obstinate and turned downwards, then it is a great hindrance.

Richness in Sadhana can be attained even without any previous preparation. There comes a time in Sadhana when the various parts of the being attain to their fulfilment from within — of course, this is true within certain limits.

Sri Aurobindo: The impulse to act is always there, especially if one has been doing action. It is a movement of the dynamic mind which wants to go on doing things. It goes on acting, planning, thinking even when one does not want to act. The dynamic mind wants to throw itself into action. From the point of view of yoga it is a waste of energy. What you have to do is to separate yourself from your nature and all its movements. You must be able to see them as things coming from the universal Prakriti — world-nature. You must externalise them all.

A letter from Nirmal Chand about Jagatsingh’s illness. In reply the following points were mentioned:

3. Where he has failed it is due not to his fault, because the Power that is coming down does not as yet dominate the most material plane.

If Jagatsingh can stand the fight for a long time there is no reason why he should not be cured. It is very difficult to say with certainty what the result would be in such a case, yet I have not given it up as a desperate one. The attitude of samata which he has taken up with regard to the result is absolutely necessary.

Sri Aurobindo: It is never undeserved. It has come to him because he is a good adhar. His psychic being seems to be of an unusually good order, and his other parts of nature are also strong.

Jagatsingh had expressed a desire to see Sri Aurobindo either psychically or physically

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know whether he has got the psychic sight. I mean whether he has developed it and is able to see visions etc. However I shall try. If he can maintain his fight he can see me here.

Moni Lahiri took up yoga and finds peace after he began Sadhana. He used to be very violent and angry.

Sri Aurobindo: That kind of mind takes a long time to come round. I do not think he would be able to complete his

progress in this life. He seems to be a man who would take several lives before he could progress. Of course, nothing can be said with certainty because something may turn up and change the whole course of the being.

Sri Aurobindo: It would be obviously due to something. It is something going on behind that is responsible for such a change and all the mental reasoning, causes, and other things, that appear with the change, are merely external covers, mere arrangements for working out the thing that is in the background.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a way of explaining it, though, really speaking, it does not explain anything when you say, “It is divine Grace.”

Sri Aurobindo: You seem to be very constitutional. You must allow God some absolute power!

Disciple: What I object to in God is that he is not definite. There must be certain conditions to deserve his Grace!

Sri Aurobindo: That is again merely a way of putting it. You may as well say in Jagatsingh’s case that he deserved it because he made himself fit for it by making mental and other effort.

Sri Aurobindo: God may have his own reasons, which are obviously not your mental reasons.

Sri Aurobindo: If he became definite then all the “maja” — fun — would go.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know that he breaks his own laws? That is why some religions say that there is nothing but “Grace”. God’s Grace is inexplicable. It eludes all mental analysis.

Disciple: In that case the Bhaktas — the devotees — have a very good chance.

Sri Aurobindo: Again you want to make another law! You can’t say that the devotees have more chance. All you can say is, “Such and such things happen.” God’s Grace is without any reason. There are no mental laws governing it. Even in yoga what his Grace does is much more than what can be done by personal effort.

Disciple: In Sadhana you go on trying and trying and the obstruction does not yield. Then suddenly you find the point of resistance is removed.

Disciple: In the case of men who undergo a sudden change in their life, I think the change is due to Grace. For example, there is the case of Lala Babu: he heard only one word and at once got Vairagya — disgust — for the world.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it can easily last. That is not the question. Even in the case of persons, whose external life shows no sign that promises a change, that is, in the most unexpected cases also changes may come. In such cases, judging merely by the external life, you can’t say that there was nothing in the man that wanted to change. The question is not what the mind and other parts demand, but what the inner being demands.

Many times it happens that the psychic being is covered up completely by some obstruction and then suddenly a blow is given which at once removes the obstacle.

Disciple: But the first awakening of the inner being is due to Grace, I believe?

Sri Aurobindo: All first awakening is an act of Grace. You are given a glimpse and then you have to work it out.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a way of putting it! You can say there is Grace and there is effort also, both are true and necessary. Grace is above; what the mind can do is to prepare itself and the rest of the being — the vital and the physical — for the Grace. The mind can even work out the impurities and in a way break the resistance.

Disciple: There may be no law governing Grace in the sense in which we understand it, but there must be some law though not a mental one?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, there is a law. But in the beginning God respects the law of each plane even though He transcends it. When the human being is raised completely above the mind then he finds the new law. Then all constructions of the mind break down.

Theoretically, there is no reason why Supermind should not come down soon and why one should not get it in a series of flashes in six months. But in that way the object is not attained. The object is to see the world-forces, to meet them on their own plane and defeat them there. Practically, it means a fight with the world-forces.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not what the world-forces want, but what you want that matters. Forces can only intensify the struggle. The world-forces never want to change their law. But if you and God want to change them

then they can be changed. Your wanting to change them is necessary, but without God wanting it, it is not sufficient.

Sri Aurobindo: Evidently, it is not want of intelligence that sent him mad. Even in the shattered intelligence in his present state you can see sparks of Truth coming out. Some of the things he said were quite true though he expressed them in a queer way. For instance, he said, “I keep all the experiences hanging till I reach the supermind”. That is quite truth. Something from behind was trying to express the truth. His external being always misapplies the truth he gets in this way. Here the truth is that the mind has to hold all opposite things in balance till the higher Light comes and reconciles them.

Sri Aurobindo: The defect was in the physical mind. There was also weakness in the physical nervous system. I cannot be sure whether that was due to something in the very material constitution of the body itself. The Power that he pulled into himself was too much for the physical mind and the nerves. His physical being also is very weak. When the higher Power descended upon it, it broke down.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, that depends. But I could have attended to the situation myself and dealt at once

without having to wait for letters. The atmosphere here also might have helped him. But I can’t say. It is only a probability, because the defect in his lower nature was there.

Disciple: There are cures of madness effected by Ojhas — certain people with occult knowledge. Are such cures final?

Sri Aurobindo: If the man has nothing in him which calls back the force that possessed, he may get well permanently. But if he has some part which feels empty without the possessing force then it may come back.

A letter from a lady disciple — Sadhika — stating that she gets Shanti — peace — but no new experience.

Sri Aurobindo: You can ask what kind of Shanti she is feeling. Is it a mental quiet or does the peace descend from above? It is the first thing that comes in this yoga. But there are various kinds of peace. There is a peace which descends with wideness. Ask her if: he feels that she is living in that peace and wideness.

If she does not, what she has to do is to go on deepening the peace. She must experience the peace more and more till it becomes constant and remains even while she is not sitting in meditation. All her work must proceed from that peace. If she can succeed in this she will be able to know how the thought comes into the mind and from where. She will also be able to see the movement in her vital being. She must slowly feel something in her that is detached from all these things.

Another lady disciple wrote how her husband after insisting on her taking up yoga had now turned round. He wanted to be flattered, and so misconstrued her silence as displeasure, her independent opinion as haughtiness and her strong determination to reject and throw away all vital enjoyment as an insult.

Sri Aurobindo: What is remarkable about her is her sharp and honest intelligence. You can tell her that the higher relation, if there was any, would unfold itself from above, and it can be known only then. What then happens can be left aside at present. She must neither accept nor reject her relation with her husband. She must remain firm in her resolve about the yoga and allow things to take their own course.

Disciple: I know of some cures effected by Pagala Kali Baba in Bengal. An iron ring is given to the patient to be worn always on the person. If he takes it off under any circumstances he again gets a relapse. There are other rules also, e.g., he must change his clothes after going to the lavatory. Are these men permanently cured?

Sri Aurobindo: They have a sort of protection, an armour or Kavacha, around them. But the defect in the nature of the person may remain underneath the Kavacha. You must know that these forces are very persistent and obstinate — being so is their common virtue!

Mrs. X. wanted to have Sri Aurobindo’s guidance after the death of her husband. She also expressed a desire to see in the subtle her dead husband.

Sri Aurobindo: About her seeing her husband who is dead two things may be written to her. 1. It depends on a certain capacity in oneself to be able to see, which, everybody has not got. 2. If the departed soul has got the will he can manifest himself. But if he is not willing, it is not good to pull him back to that relation, as it may retard his movement in the other planes where he may have to remain for his development. It is not good to tie him down to earthly attachment.

She writes about the Truth and its attainment. In case she wants it the demand for it must be independent of the depression through which she is passing. If there is a call deep within her then it will be answered.

Disciple: There is A — from Chittagong — who wants a reply to his letter. He is already having a “hut” there for his Sadhana.

Disciple: It is the time — honoured custom for beginning spiritual life. You don’t seem to give any value to it.

Disciple: In the Ramayana there is a story of a king — I think Dhvaja — who went to the forest and remained in a hut.

Disciple: Yes, and his Guru — who was his wife in disguise — came there and convinced him that he had not give up the world! (laughter) Then they went back and lived happily ever afterwards.

Sri Aurobindo: That was all right in those days. But now people who think of building huts have more chance of going mad than they had in the old times.

Disciple: What is the cause of it? Why do people nowadays easily fall a prey to the forces that bring madness?

Sri Aurobindo: You had better read Vincent Smith; there you will find all the causes.

Sri Aurobindo: Maybe it is due to people leaving off eating bulls and calves, (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Among other things the Vaishnavite Sadhana has contributed to this madness in yoga. They brought down the whole Sadhana into the emotional plane and they could not distinguish between the true emotional movement of the psychic and spiritual being and the vital and other lower parts which imitate it. It is that which gives room for all sorts of lower forces to enter.

This movement of restlessness and madness came to be accepted to such an extent that madness was almost regarded as another word for “yoga”. “Pagal kare dao” — “make me mad” — was the aspiration! Of course, I am not speaking of the old Vaishnavism but of the present-day forms.

Disciple: Even in Sri Chaitanya you see that weeping and dancing and even restlessness.

The second thing is that our physical mind is not well developed. Being a dependent nation we have no scope for large action and therefore the development of our physical minds is poor. There must be something positive in the physical mind, an element that grasps at the Reality. In its own nature, the physical mind refuses to believe anything else except Matter to be real. There is the extremist like X who used to switch off the electric light when he saw the Light descending in his inner being! Not that kind of thing, but some element of it is necessary so that the physical mind may question everything and accept only the Truth.

Some of these Sadhakas see all kinds of visions. At times they see a buffalo and think that they have attained Siddhi — perfection! It never even once occurs

to them to put the question: “After all, what do these visions mean?” “What have I gained from them so far?” If you suggest these questions they brush them aside.

A disciple got fever which was suspected to be malarial. So the methods of cure were discussed.

Disciple: There is a method of resorting to Anushthan. In some they strike the head with a stone block or turn the beard etc. Is there any truth in these?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? Anything — even a hammer — can cure if you have the faith.

Sri Aurobindo: If you have no faith then certainly it has no value. If you have faith it may not be necessary. But if you have faith in Anushthan then it is necessary.

Sri Aurobindo: Mantra is something different from Anusthan. Generally, it is a vital force that is put in the Mantra, it is not psychic or spiritual in its nature.

Disciple: Are there no psychic or spiritual Mantras and do they not undergo change by being put to egoistic purposes?

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic is the psychic and remains the psychic,— it does its work. It does not fail, it does not try to play the God as the vital and other forces do.

Sri Aurobindo: As I told you before, it is the combination of will and faith. But that is not enough by itself. Repeating the same words [“Day by day, in every way, I am getting

better and better”] is of the nature of an Anushthan. But there is a third something, I can’t say what it is, which is necessary. That something automatically comes down when the conditions are ready.

I used to get fever and sometimes something would come down and reject it successfully, while at other times you have to go on working at one thing again and again. I have seen that the strongest faith does not succeed; you may have the strongest will and yet the cure may not be effected.

Not that faith is not necessary or the will is not useful. But they both require a third element on whose coming down — even if there is opposition — the thing gets done. Generally, the idea is that one succeeds when the circumstances are favourable and when there is no strong opposition. But that is not always true.

When the third element is there then the opposition even does not matter, the success invariably comes.

The subject this evening was the ideal of a “perfect body” which would be “incorruptible”.

Sri Aurobindo: The ideal is all right. But the physical being is not at all satisfactory — and one can’t get over it by ignoring facts.

Disciple: Mahatma Gandhi in his autobiography refers to many experiments with the body. He holds that the world has to become fit to receive the truth.

Sri Aurobindo: That is true. His autobiography will be a classical book in a line with the confessions of Rousseau and St. Augustine. But the question is whether his ideal is the Truth. That is to say, we must know whether we are on the right path when we advocate an ethical solution as final.

Then there was a turn in the conversation. A disciple asked about occult phenomena.

Disciple: There are cases of removal of flower-vases and movements of tables during occult seances. Are these things done by the power of suggestion?

Disciple: The report is that there is a smoky path stretching from the medium to the object.

Sri Aurobindo: That is possible; there are various forms of Matter. What we know is the grossest form but there are other subtler ranges of Matter, and each form has its own properties. There are seven earths mentioned in Indian mythology; also according to the Veda there are three earths. Karta Virya, the King, is reported to have conquered fourteen earths!

Sri Aurobindo: There is in fact no gap in man’s sheaths. It is a gamut or scale ascending from the lowest to the highest plane; and the principle of each is repeated in all. Thus all is in each. Otherwise the world cannot go on. There are four other bodies different from the material physical body which we have.

Sri Aurobindo: When a thing disappears it may go into the next plane which is not the gross material, but is physical all the same. So there is no question of de-materialisation.

Disciple: There is an idea of materialisation and de-materialisation in the case of occult phenomena. For instance, if a material object appears, and then disappears, What is the explanation?

Sri Aurobindo: But what is de-materialisation? In fact, we must ask: what is Matter? It is made of certain forces

or a play of forces holding up, or maintaining, the physical form, is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: The explanation can be that when an object is made to disappear in the fourth dimension of space then it is de-materialisation and when it is put out from the fourth dimension into our space then it is materialisation, because then the object appears to us.

Disciple: But nowadays the scientists speak of the selective power of the atom; then can we not speak of “life” of an atom?

Sri Aurobindo: Life in an atom. But these things one has to see with the inner eye.

Disciple: What is meant by seeing with the inner eye, and by bodies in the fourth dimension?

Sri Aurobindo: It is a way of saying; more easily you can feel it, that is, be conscious of it.

Sri Aurobindo: One feels them. Knowledge and consciousness are not the same thing. It is not formulated knowledge. It is rather a feeling.

Sri Aurobindo: J. C. Bose has shown there is what may be called “fatigue” in metals and plants, and metals are sensitive to poisons.

Disciple: There is the reported case of the breaking of an iron rod by some subtle or occult force.

Sri Aurobindo: That is Life-force: it acts on the life-force in the metal. But in the metal it is so mechanical and so different from what we ordinarily know as “life” that we can’t call it “life”.

Form is the most visible sign of life in the atom. So there is a tendency in the physical atom to throw away anything that would destroy the form: there is an effort to preserve the form.

Sri Aurobindo: Life or life-consciousness is a relative term. Of course it is not like man’s life or even life in the vegetable kingdom.

Sri Aurobindo: You can only experience it. If you enter into the universal consciousness which is common to all things then you can feel the metal’s parsimonious and spare manifestation of life. In Matter itself and around it you can feel this life and enter into it by identification with the universal spirit. When a blow is given to the table you can feel that you are struck — of course, you can speak of it metaphorically, you can’t demonstrate it but you can identify your self with it.

Sri Aurobindo: The first thing one sees when one has broken the barrier is the vital-physical body. It is around the physical body and with the physical it forms as it were the “nervous envelope”. The force of a disease has to break through it to reach the body — except for the attacks on the most material parts.

You can then feel the disease coming and also feel in the nervous envelope the part of the body which it is going to, or intending to, attack because what is in the nervous envelope has a material counterpart in the body. Thus it is the vital-physical which is first attacked and then the force takes the form of a disease in the system.

Sri Aurobindo: All disturbance and agitation is a sign of weakness. One must be stolid, and attend to the development of consciousness. No agitation — only feeling and knowledge.

Disciple: And there is the same selection under the same conditions, so we can say that it is mechanical only and there is no “life”!

Sri Aurobindo: It has life — but it is life of quite another kind. There is consciousness in it also — but it is involved and works under mechanical laws and it is not individualised. In material objects there are physical forces trying to maintain the forms. But there is even some life-force gathered round the form by the universal consciousness which is behind it.

Perhaps it even gets experience but the experience is not recorded. There is no growth, because there is no individualisation. And even that idea — of individualiation — is relative. You can say, “It has a kind of individuality.” But relatively speaking it has none. Man is more individualised, though one can say he is not yet truly an individual, because the true individuality has not yet manifested.

After his lunch at about 4-30 p.m. I was reading to him the memorial oration on X by a prominent public man. One after the other, beginning from the Governor, had praised him in the most superlative terms, e.g., “upright”, “honest”, “at great friend of the poor” etc., hearing which Sri Aurobindo exclaimed,

“Good Lord!” and burst into laughter and remarked: “X ought to be canonized: St. X. One can generalise the statement that all men are liars. Such is public life. When Y died, D and others who were life-long against him did the same thing.”

Then we began talking about Homeopathy, its difference from Allopathy, its doses etc., etc.

Sri Aurobindo remarked that Homeopathy is

nearer to yoga and allopathy is more mechanical. Homeopathy deals with the physical personality, the symptoms put together making up the physical personality, while allopathy goes by diagnosis which does not consider the personality. The action of Homeopathy is more subtle and dynamic.

Then a disciple said that some yogis go to Samadhi as a release from bodily pain and suffering. But there are those who don’t do that and bear the pain.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Yogis can go into Samadhi and put and end to the sensations. But it is not necessary to have a disease in order to go into Samadhi. Besides, when one decides to bear it, it seems to me a way of accepting the disease. But I don’t understand the utility of going into Samadhi to escape from pain.

Ramakrishna once said to Keshav Chandra Sen, when the former was seriously ill, that his body was breaking up under the stress of his spiritual development. But there is no necessity of having a disease for the sake of spiritual development.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes. But he did not believe in such will, or prayer to the Divine to cure his disease.

Disciple: It is said that he got his cancer because of the sins of his disciples.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He said so himself and, when he said that, it must be true. You know he is said to have given arguments for and against the view that the Guru has to take up many things of the disciples upon himself.

The Mother does that because she unites himself with the disciple; takes them up into herself. Of course, she at the same time stops also many things from happening

in herself. A famous yogi told a disciple of his when he was becoming a Guru, “In addition to your own difficulties you are taking up those of others.” Of course, if one cuts the connection with the disciples then that can’t happen but that means no work and the Sadhakas are left to themselves without support.

This sort of interchange is very common. Wherever two persons meet, the interchange is going on. In that way one contracts a disease from another without any infection by germs. N. was conscious of what he was receiving from others and did not care to think about what he was passing to them. Not only that, he even thought he had power for good or for evil. Bad thoughts may affect others. That is why Buddha used to emphasise right thought etc. You find some people cannot do without meeting others. What is after all the passion of man and woman for each other? Nothing but this vital interchange, this drawing in of forces from each other. When a woman has a need of someone else, that means she is in need of a vital force from him. Woman and man running after each other means this interchange or drawing. Of course, it takes place unconsciously; even in ordinary life when a person does not like another he does not know the reason but it means that their vital beings don’t agree. You know the lines.

One may not know exactly if it is the incapacity of the vital or disagreement. You see people — men and women — quarreling violently with each other and yet they can’t do without each other; that is because each has a need of the vital force from the other. Of course the need has been imposed on the woman by man. Woman has almost always such a necessity. That is what is called being in love. In all societies they established the

husband-and-wife relation so that this exchange and interchange may be limited to each other and an equation may be established.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course. If one receives more than what he gives then there may be bad consequences for the other. You know what Hindu Astrology says about “Rakshasa Yoga”; a husband who loses many wives one after another means that instead of supporting them he is eating them up.

Sri Aurobindo: Those who constantly draw from others’ vital beings without giving anything in return we call vampires.

Sri Aurobindo: May be either. There are men vampires as there are women vampires. There is also the vital which is expansive in its nature. In such a case one has the need of pouring out the vital force. But there is again another kind of expansive vital which is the Hitlerian vital, catching hold of other people and keeping them under one’s grip.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course not. The law of the psychic is to give without making any demand.

Disciple: There was a time when barbers occupied a respectable place in medicine.

Sri Aurobindo: Why, during the middle ages, it seems, most of the surgeons were barbers. (After a pause) I understand there are Kavirajas — physicians who can, by examining the pulse, state the physical condition and the disease of the patient, is that true?

Disciple: No one has seen these claims demonstrated. I have heard of some remarkable Nadi — pulse — specialists who can even say what the patient had eaten a few days ago. (laughter) Can we accept these claims?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? How do you know they are not correct? Many sciences are built up by experience and intuition. They are handed down by tradition; for example, the Chinese method of treatment by finding and pricking the nerve-centres.

Disciple: It is said of Dhanavantari, the father of Ayurveda, that he came to know the medicinal properties of plants by intuition. He would, it seems, stand before a plant and question the plant and it would reveal its properties to him.

Sri Aurobindo: (smiling) He was the physician of the Gods and so nothing is unnatural for him. (laughter) (after a pause) Ayurveda is the first system of medicine; it originated in India. Medicine, mathematical notation and astrology all went from India to Arabia, and from there they travelled to Greece. There three humours of which Hippocrates and Galen speak are an Indian idea.

Disciple: At Calcutta and other places they are trying to start Ayurvedic schools. I think it is good. It will be a combination of Eastern and Western methods, especially of Western Anatomy and Surgery.

Sri Aurobindo: Why! Anatomy and Surgery were known to Indians. There were many surgical instruments in India. For an ancient system like the Ayurveda I doubt if the modern method of teaching would do. Modern methods make the whole subject too mental,— too intellectual, while the ancient systems were more intuitional. These subjects used to be handed down from Guru to disciple. The same is true about yoga. One can’t think of schools and colleges and studies about yoga. That would be an American idea. The centre of yoga teaching

in America has been holding classes and giving lectures and courses.

Doctor X insisted on removing the splints that were attached to Sri Aurobindo’s fractured thigh but all those who were in attendance could not assent to his proposal. At last the doctor departed leaving the question to be decided by Sri Aurobindo. When he was asked his opinion he said:

I do not want to take a risk. I have to be careful as I am not sure that some violent movement would not take place in sleep. And there are the adverse forces to be considered. The specialist says ten weeks, Dr. X says six; so we will take a via media that will satisfy both.

Disciple: Dr. X always emphasises that you are an extraordinary patient who can be trusted to follow directions.

Sri Aurobindo: In that case I have to take extraordinary care. (After an interval of silence during which the Mother came and departed for meditation, Sri Aurobindo himself continued); It seems the doctors are born to differ. Medical science has developed much knowledge but in application it is either an art or a fluke.

Disciple: Perhaps it has not attained exactness in its application because of individual variation.

Sri Aurobindo: They have not found any drug that can be called a specific for a particular disease,— I am thinking of Allopathy. I know nothing about Homeopathy. Even in theory, which they have developed remarkably, there is always a change. What they hold true today is discarded as invalid after ten years. A French doctor has proved with statistics that T.B. is not a contagious disease.

He says it is hereditary. I myself have not found it contagious. Or, take diet — they are changing their ideas constantly about it.

Disciple: Besides uncertainty of the medicine and treatment, there are doctors who are incapable and even unscrupulous. I think that the medical profession should be under State-control.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t believe in that. I like State-control less than a Medical Council’s control.

Disciple: Something like the action of the Country Council in London would be desirable. There a regular medical check-up is enjoined.

Disciple: The nationalisation of medical service is envisaged. Patients of a particular locality are placed under the charge of a doctor and it appears they can’t change the doctor without sufficient reason.

Sri Aurobindo: If the patient has no faith in the doctor, or if he does not like him?

Disciple: That is not a sufficient reason, for the council sees that all the doctors are well-trained.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? it is an excellent reason. Why should there be no choice? You may as well ask a patient to be under our doctor X and not go to Y. I have no faith in Government controls because I believe in a certain amount of freedom — freedom to find out things for oneself in one’s own way, even freedom to commit blunders. Nature leads us through various errors and mistakes. When Nature created the human being with all his. possibilities of errors and mistakes she knew very well what she was about. Freedom for experiment in human life is a great thing. Without the freedom to take risk and commit mistakes there can be no progress.

Disciple: But without sufficient growth of consciousness one may abuse the freedom.

Sri Aurobindo: One must take the risk. Growth of consciousness cannot come without freedom. You can, of course, have certain elementary laws, and develop sanitation, spread knowledge of health and hygiene among the people. The State can provide medical aid certainly, but when one goes beyond one’s province then the error comes in. To say that one can’t change one’s doctor, it seems to me, is a little too much. In Indian spirituality they have allowed all sorts of experiments including Varna Marga, and you see how wonderfully it has developed.

Mechanisation has begun from the pressure exerted by the developments of the physical sciences in which one can be exact, precise and where everything is mechanical. It is tried and found to be all right so far as physical things are concerned because, if you make a mistake there, Nature knocks you on the nose and you are compelled to see your error. But the moment you deal with Life and Mind, you cannot apply the same rules. If you apply them then you may go on committing mistakes and never know it. You fail to see this because of a fixed idea which tries to fit in everything according to its own conception.

Everything is moving towards that in Europe. The Totalitarian states do not believe in any individual variation and even other non-totalitarian States are obliged to follow them. They do it for the sake of efficiency. It is the efficiency of the States as an organisation, the machine, and not of the individual. The individual has no freedom. He does not grow. Organise by all means but there must be scope for freedom and plasticity.

Disciple: Bernard Shaw justified the Abyssinian conquest of Italy by saying that there was danger to human life while passing through the Dankal desert.

Sri Aurobindo: In that case, let him keep out of the desert. What business has he to go through the desert?

Disciple: The idea is that Italy will bring a new culture to Abyssinia,— roads and other features of modern civilisation.

Sri Aurobindo: You think the Abyssinians and Negroes have no art and no culture? Of course, if you walk into a Negro den they might kill you. But the same thing is being done in Germany! How many people in England are aesthetically developed? And about buildings and roads, looking at life in Port Said: could anyone say that the people there are more civilised than the Negroes? Have you read Phanindra Nath Bose’s book on the Santhals? He shows that the Santhals are not at all inferior to other classes of Indians in ethics. So also about the Arabian races, Mr. Blunt praises them very highly as a sympathetic and honest people. Do you think that the average man of today is far better than a Greek two thousand years ago, or to an Indian of those times? Look at the condition of Germany today. You can’t say that it is progressing.

I have come in contact with the Indian masses and found them better than the Europeans of the same class. They are superior to the European working-class. The latter may be more efficient but that is due to other reasons. The Governor here remarked during riots that the labourers are very docile and humble; only when they take to drink they become violent. The Irish doctor who was in our jail could not think how the young men who were so gentle and attractive could be revolutionaries. I found even the ordinary criminal quite human and better than his counterpart in Europe.

There will always remain different states of development of humanity. It is a fallacy to say that education will do everything. Our civilisation is not an unmixed good. You have only to look at civilised races in Europe.

What is the state of affairs in Nazi Germany? It is terrible, it is extremely difficult for an individual to assert himself. All are living in a state of tension. In that tension either the whole structure will break up with a crash, or all life will be crushed out of the people. In both cases the result is a disaster.

Society is after all reverting to the old system,— only in a different form. There is a revival of the old system of monarchy with an aristocracy and the mass. There is the Führer or the leader; that is to say, the king. You have thus the sovereign man, his party — the aristocracy, the chosen — and the general mass. The same is the case with Fascism and Communism. Only the Brahmin class — the intellectuals — have no place.

It is curious how a thing gets spoiled when it gets recognition. Democracy was something better when it was not called democracy. When the name is given the truth of it seems to go out.

Disciple: X used to be a great admirer of Socialism. He used to say it is heaven without a god.

Sri Aurobindo: Why could not he go there? If he had gone there he would have been suppressed. I had foreseen that socialism would take away all freedom of the individual.

Sri Aurobindo: Practically none. The Nazis call themselves National Socialists while the others are mere Socialists; in Communism it is a proletarian Government and there are no separate classes. The Nazis have kept the classes, only they are all bound to the State, everything is under State-control just as in Communism.

Disciple: But Communism began with a high ideal and it must be better than Fascism or Nazism.

Sri Aurobindo: In which way better? Formely people were

unconscious, slaves, now under Communism they are conscious slaves. In the former regime they could resort to a strike when they were dissatisfied, now they can’t. The main question is whether the people have freedom or not. But they are bound to the State, the dictator and the party. They can’t even choose the dictator. And whoever differs from them is mercilessly suppressed. You know the way they are doing it.

Disciple: But with the abolition of class-distinction there is now perhaps a sense of equality among all — nobody is superior or inferior.

Sri Aurobindo: How? At first the leaders, the generals and others went to run the machines and industrial organisations in Russia. But they found it was not possible; then they had to bring in specialists and pay them highly. The condition of the working class in Russia is no better than that of the similar class in England or France. They, certainly, have done some good things with regard to women and children, or about medical help. But that is being done in many other countries like France and England.

Sri Aurobindo: Probably, because they are Socialists. But they are getting disillusioned. Plenty of French workers went to Russia and came back disappointed. The same thing had happened when democracy had come. People thought there would be plenty of liberty, but they found it was a delusion.

Disciple: But formerly they were serving the Emperor and now they serve their own people.

Sri Aurobindo: Certainly not,— where did you get the idea from? The Emperor had nothing to do with the Government. It was the capitalist class that ruled the country. The same is the case today whatever name one may give.

The whole thing — whatever its name — is a fraud. It is impossible to change humanity by political machinery — it can’t be done.

Disciple: I am puzzled to think how such infinitesimal doses in dilution can act on the human system.

Sri Aurobindo: That is no puzzle to me. Sometimes the infinitesimal is more powerful than the mass; it approaches more and more the subtle state and from the physical goes into a dynamic or vital state and acts vitally.

In the evening a letter from a disciple describing vividly his being persecuted was read.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, It is the possession of the nervous system and vital system and vital mind. It is not like insanity. It is very difficult to convince these people that their ideas of persecution are false. There are two types: one imagines all sorts of things,— 80 per cent cases are of this type; and the other twists everything.

My brother Manmohau had this persecution mania; he was always in fear of something terrible happening to him. He used to think that the British Government was going to arrest him!

Disciple: But he was a very successful professor; I heard that people used to listen to his lectures with rapt attention.

Sri Aurobindo: He was very painstaking; most of the professors

don’t work hard. I saw that his books used to be interleaved and marked and full of notes. Then Sri Aurobindo, looking at X, said: “I was not so conscientious a professor.”

Disciple: But people who heard you in College and those who heard you afterwards in politics differ from you. They speak very highly of your lectures.

Sri Aurobindo: I never used to look at the notes and sometimes my explanations did not agree with them at all. I was professor of English and for some time of French. What was surprising to me was that the students used to take down everything verbatim and mug it up by heart. Such a thing would never have happened in England.

Disciple: No, that was not the case. We used to take down everything verbatim because the professors used to bring in many theorise and recent discoveries. Besides, each professor had his own fad.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be so in medicine, there is not much scope for original thinking. But in the arts it is not like that. You listen to the lectures, take notes if you like and then make what you can of them. There was always a demand for the student’s point of view.

The students at Baroda, besides taking my notes, used to get notes of other professors from Bombay, especially if he was an examiner.

Once I was giving a lecture on Southey’s Life of Nelson, and my lecture was not in agreement with the notes. So the students remarked that it was not at all like what was found in them. I replied that I had

not read notes; in any case they were all rubbish I could never go into minute details. I read and left my mind to do what it could That is why I could never become a scholar. Up to the age of fifteen I was known as a very promising scholar at St. Paul’s. After fifteen I lost that reputation. The teachers used to say that I was lazy and was deteriorating.

Sri Aurobindo: Because I was reading novels and poetry. Only at the time of the examination I used to prepare a little, when, now and then, I used to write Greek and Latin verse my teachers used to lament that I was not utilising my remarkable gifts because of my laziness.

When I went for scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge, Oscar Browning remarked that he had not seen such remarkable papers before. So, you see, in spite of all laziness I was not deteriorating.

Sri Aurobindo: No. There was no distinction between an Englishman and an Indian. Only the lower class people used to shout “Blackie Blackie”. But it was just the beginning. It was brought by Anglo-Indians and Englishmen retiring from the colonies. It is a result of Democracy, I suppose. But among cultured Englishmen it was unknown and they treated us as equals.

But in France one never heard of such prejudices. Once some Paris hotel-manager, pressed by ten Americans, asked some Negroes to to leave the hotel. I don’t know if you have read the story in the papers. As soon as it came to the President’s notice, he sent an order that if the hotel proprietor did that his hotel license would be cancelled. They have Negro governors and officers, taxi-drivers etc. There was a Senegalese deputy who used to designate the governors. I wonder why they have never appointed

any Indian deputy in Pondicherry. The English have a certain liberality and common sense.

Sri Aurobindo: By liberality I don’t mean generosity but a sort of freedom of consciousness and a certain fairness. Because of these, along with their public spirit, there is not such confusion in public life in England as in France or in America. The English can vehemently criticise one another in the press — even personally — but that does not affect their private relationship. You have seen how Brailsford has attacked Chamberlain; but their friendship, or private relations, won’t be affected by that.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is quite genuine and there is a great freedom of speech in England.

Disciple: Vivekananda said that it is difficult to make friends with an Englishman, but once the friendship is made it lasts a life-time.

Disciple: Jean Herbert says that the Japanese are also like that. They are very polite and formal but once you can make friends they are a very good friends.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. The Japanese are very polite in their manners and conduct, but they don’t admit you to their private life. They have a wonderful power of self-control. They don’t lose their temper or quarrel with you; but if their honour is violated they may kill you. They can be bitter enemies. And where honour is concerned, if they do not kill you, they may kill themselves at your door. For instance, if a Japanese killed himself at an Englishman’s door it would be impossible for the latter to live there any more. Even in crime the Japanese have a strange sense of values If a robber entered a house and the house holder told him that he required some money, the robber

would part with some of it; but if he said that he had a debt of honour to pay then the robber would leave all the money and go away. Imagine such a house-breaker in England or America! The Japanese also have a high sense of chivalry. In the Russo-Japanese war when the Russians were defeated the Mikado almost shed tears thinking of the Czar of Russia! That was his sense of Chivalry.

When a congregation of fifty thousand persons was caught in a fire due to an earthquake there was not a single cry, not a mutter. All men were standing up and chanting a Buddhist hymn. That is a heroic people with wonderful self-control.

Sri Aurobindo: Ah, self-control alone is not enough for yoga. They are more an ethical race; their rules are extremely difficult to follow.

But these things perhaps belong to the past. It is a great pity that people who have carried such ideals into practice are losing them through contact with European civilisation. That is a great harm that European vulgarising has done to Japan. Now you find most people mercantile in their outlook and they will do anything for the sake of money.

Nakashima’s mother when she returned from America to Japan — as is the custom with the Japanese — was so horrified to see the present-day Japan that she went back to America! That the Japanese are not a spiritual race can be seen from the case of H, who was a great patriot and full of schemes for the future but at the same time did not like the modern trends of Japan. He used to say: “My psychic being has become a traitor.”

Disciple: Have you read Noguchi’s letter to Tagore defending Japan’s aggression?

Sri Aurobindo: No. But there are always two sides to a

question. I don’t believe in such shouts against Imperialism. Conquests of that sort were, at one time, regarded as a normal activity of political life; now you do it under some pretensions and excuses. Almost every nation does it. What about China herself? She took Kashgar in the same way. The very name Kashgar shows that the Chinese have no business to be there. Apart from the new fashions of killing there is nothing wrong in war. It is the Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy that cries out against it; the French don’t.

Disciple: It is said of the French that they don’t usually lose their head, but when they lose it they lose it well.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the Indian also was considered docile and mild like the elephant, but once he is off the line you better keep out of his way.

Now there is a new morality in the air. They talk of pacifism, anti-nationalism, anti-militarism etc. But it is talked by those who can’t do anything. In any case, it has to stand the test of time.

Disciple: J used to be wild when England began to shout against Italy’s war on Abyssinia. Of course, J does not defend Italy, but England should be the last nation to speak against it.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. England was the only country that defended air-bombing because the English wanted to kill the Pathans.

Sri Aurobindo: It has lowered the moral tone of humanity. Of course, it has brought hygiene, sanitation etc. Even nineteenth-century civilisation with its defects was better than this. Europe could not stand the last war.

The ancients tried to keep to their ideals and made an effort to raised them higher, while Europe lost all her ideals after the war. People have become cynical, selfish etc. What you hear of post-war England, post-war Germany,

is not all wrong. Have you not heard Arjava (Chadwick) inveighing against post-war England? I suppose it is all due to commercialism.

Mother: Do you know about a school of Homeopathy in Switzerland which is very famous in Europe? It prepares medicines also. They have books in which symptoms are grouped together and remedies are indicated for a group of symptoms. It is a very convenient method; only, you have to have the book, or a good memory. But are you allowed to practise Homeopathy without licence?

Disciple: But Dr. S was saying that using high potencies might harm, or even kill, the patient. It is dangerous if everybody begins to practice it, they say.

Disciple: Yes, in cities where there is a Mahomedan population, and in the Muslim States In Delhi there is the Tibbi College founded by Hakim Ajmal Khan. It seems it is the only school of Unani medicine in the whole of Asia. Students from Turkey, Egypt and Afghanistan used to come there to learn. Ajmal Khan was the direct descendant of the court Hakim to the Mogul Emperors. From where is their system derived?

Sri Aurobindo: It is from the Greek school. They use animal products and salts. Besides curing, which is common to all the systems, the Unani lays claim to rejuvenating the

human organism. Many diseases which require an operation for their cure in Allopathy are cured by Unani and Ayurvedic medicines without an operation.

There were many specific cures known in India but I am afraid they are getting lost. I remember the case of Jyotindra Nath Bannerji who had a remedy for sterility from a Sannyasi and he used it with success. Many cases of barrenness for ten or fifteen years were cured within a short time. The directions for taking the medicine were very scrupulously to be observed. He knew also a remedy for hydrocele.

Mother: Do you know about Chinese medicine? Once they had a rule that you paid the doctor so long as you were well. AH payment stopped when one became ill, and if the patient died they used to put a mark on the doctor’s door to show that his patient had died.

But the Chinese method of pricking the nerve and curing the disease is very remarkable. The idea is that there is a point of the nerve where the attack of the disease is concentrated by the attacking force and if you prick the point, or, as they say, the Devil on the head, the disease is cured. They find out this nervous point from the indications that the patient gives, or sometimes they find out by themselves also.

Disciple: I do not think that any system of medicine can succeed in curing all diseases. I believe that only yogic power can cure all diseases.

Disciple: Even that is not unconditional; otherwise, it might be very nice. There are conditions to be fulfilled for the yogic power to succeed.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you expect that the yogic power, or consciousness will simply say “Let there be no disease”, and there will be no disease?

Disciple: Not that way. But cases of miraculous cures are known, that is, cures effected without any conditions.

Sri Aurobindo: That is another matter. Otherwise, the Yogi has to get up every morning and say, “Let everybody in the world be all right” and there would be no disease in the world! (laughter)

Disciple: The Jain books speak of Trikal Jnana, practical omniscience. If one has this power one can know how a thing happened. One can know how the accident to you happened.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a question of changing the subconscient which holds everything in itself, all diseases, habits and everything else which we call “Nature”.

Sri Aurobindo: It was because I was unguarded and something forced its way into the subconscient. There is a stage in Yogic advance when the least negligence would not do.

Sri Aurobindo: The right kind of Force does not come down on the knee-joint. If it came it would be cured.

Disciple: There is a belief that the reactions of certain actions are unavoidable: that is to say, one has to bear the consequences in the physical, one can’t avoid them. I heard that the Mother told A that his incurable defect of the body could be cured by the descent of the Supramental Power. Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, by the descent of the Supramental Power into A, not into anybody else.

Disciple: But in that case the Supramental descent can change stones and metals.

Sri Aurobindo: In stones and metals there is no mind which requires to be changed. It is not so difficult to effect a change in them. So if the Supermind descends into you it will do,— there is no need to solve all problems.

Disciple: But it must take place in you first and if it happens what changes will it bring about?

Sri Aurobindo: My work is to fix it in the earth-consciousness and its establishment in me would be a part of it. It would make its descent possible in others also.

Disciple: We hear that great Siddhas used to cure the sickness of others by mere touch, Ramakrishna gave even yogic experience by a touch.

Sri Aurobindo: There are different kinds of powers by which these things are done; they are miracles. But the power to perform miracles is not necessarily a sign of spirituality. In this yoga we leave things to the Divine; if these powers come as a part of the divine movement then they have a place.

Disciple: Are there not Karmas — actions — the results of which are unavoidable? Even Jain Tirthankars and Buddhas had to undergo the results of their actions done in the past. Can it be said in your case that the accident was the result of “Utkata-Karma?”

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think so. For me it is a part of the fight against forces of ignorance and against hostile forces.

Disciple: Your foot slipped on the tiger-skin. Now, suppose you had beaten a tiger in your past life with a stick, then it may give you a fractured leg this time.

Sri Aurobindo: No. Then it would come and kill me this time. The Law of Karma is not mathematical or mechanical. The Law of Karma simply put is: when certain energies are put forward then certain results tend to be

produced. Karma is not the fundamental law of consciousness. The basic law is spiritual. Karma is a secondary machinery to help the consciousness to grow by experience. The laws of being are primarily spiritual. It is quite possible to eliminate the Karmic force — it is not absolute. It is the mind that formulates these laws; and the mind always tries to put them as absolute.

Sri Aurobindo: I have advanced very much further after November last. I have found time to write some books; now I get more time to concentrate.

Sri Aurobindo: Even D who formerly could not believe in the silent working of the Power now says that the stopping of Pranams has made the silent work more possible.

Sri Aurobindo: Not only that, he wanted me to write more poetry and more letters to him. (laughter)

Disciple: A has written to some one in Bengal that the vital being in man is responsible for diseases and that the body has no part in it. What do you think of it?

Sri Aurobindo: You can say “matter” knows nothing about good and bad, or sick and healthy. But the human body, I mean the physical consciousness, is not “matter”. It is conscious, and therefore it can have its own responsibility with regard to diseases.

Disciple: It seems A’s standpoint referred to repentance and expiation. He wanted to say that to punish the body for the faults of the vital being or of the mind was to punish John for Jack.

Sri Aurobindo: One may differ on that point too. To consider as if the body, the vital and the mind were so cut off from each other as not to have any mutual reaction is not true So the physical can react on the vital being.

Disciple: But the physical being in us is not as conscious as the vital or the mental being.

Sri Aurobindo: The physical may be said to be more inconscient than the other parts, but that would not prevent it from exerting a very powerful influence on the other parts.

Besides, the decision to fast, or to do physical Tapasya, is taken by the vital and the mental being in man. It is not the, body that takes the decision.

Disciple: But in the psychological paths of yoga physical Tapasya is not regarded as necessary.

Sri Aurobindo: The reason why physical Tapasya, or mortification of the flesh, is not considered effective or is discouraged, is that by itself it is not sufficient to bring about a change in the vital or in the mind. You may do Tapasya all right and yet the vital may remain absolutely unchanged.

Such a change can be more easily brought about by the consciousness acting directly without resorting to physical means. Consciousness has a more direct means of bringing about the required change.

There is another reason for this discouragement: physical Tapasya, when properly done, brings about a great increase in energy, and then the result of it depends upon who takes hold of the energy. Generally it is seen that wrong forces take hold of this energy. In exceptional cases only can one go through without disaster.

The root of the whole trouble is in the subconscient, and so the difficulty arises from there.

But if the Tapasya is taken up by the consciousness —

say, by some part of the consciousness like the vital, then it can effect the necessary change.

Disciple: Do you think that R could have been cured? Most people believe that cancer is incurable.

Sri Aurobindo: It was possible in his case, at least; but something in him ceased to respond after the February-Darshan. The last three days his body did not respond either to the force put upon him, or to the medicine given.

Disciple: Could not the spiritual help be effective irrespective of his response?

Sri Aurobindo: In cases like this the entire collaboration of the person concerned is absolutely necessary.

Sri Aurobindo: To detect the force that is attacking is one thing and to drive it out is another. In these cases the mind plays a very great part. R had made up his mind that he would wait for the Darshan and die afterwards. Besides when he came here the disease was very much advanced.

Sri Aurobindo: Either entire collaboration or complete passivity. These are the two conditions for a cure.

Disciple: Do you think Dr. A’s Homeopathic treatment could have prolonged his life?

We were showing an art journal published from Andhra. On seeing some of the reproductions Sri Aurobindo made the following remarks: —

Sri Aurobindo: The further you go back in time greater the grandeur you meet in the conception. The nearer you come to our time the more the art becomes great in detail. Even up to the time of the Delvada Temples something of the old culture was living. One must bring the tide back.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the law. You can’t have the creative spirit always at the height.

Disciple: What we require is the reawakening of the Spirit, it is not necessary to have the same or similar form or style.

Sri Aurobindo: In spirituality, in the arts, in poetry you find the same foundation in old times. You find a certain “calm strength” founded on the Spirit, and all expression proceeds on the basis of that “calm strength.” In modern art as soon as you begin to give place to, or substitute, vital fantasies and other elements instead of that “calm

strength” you find that art deteriorates. It becomes an effort, a straining to express, it becomes artificial and even vulgar. In ancient times they expressed what they had and were. The Upanishads have not been rivalled since because of their “calm strength”.

In a way, the same thing applies to yoga also. For example, my objection to the whole old Vaishnavite method of Sadhana is that it gives too much of an opening to the demoralising spirit of the vital world.

Sri Aurobindo: Not that there is no truth in it; but it is lacking in that “calm strength” of the Spirit. For instance, why should a man put on a sari because he feels Radha-Bhava? Let him feel it and realise it within. But that way of bringing down a law of another plane to the plane where another law holds, and trying to impose it there, introduces a falsehood. That is to say, even the truth in it is turned into a falsehood.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not find any sign of decadence; only, in old times they had grandeur, as you come nearer to our times you find they do finer and more delicate work. For example, late Rajput painting; the fundamental spirit is the same in it. Formerly it was thought that there was a gulf between Ajanta and the Rajput School of painting, but the Nepalese, the Tibetan and Central Asian finds of painting prove the continuity of Indian art. Almost in every culture one sees that in earlier times there is grandeur of conception, while later on it becomes more conscious and vital,— detailed and delicate in expression.

Sri Aurobindo: Did you refer to the dictionary to find out whether “Chaitya Purusha” can mean “the Psychic being”, “the Soul”?

Disciple (1): I did, but the word is not given there in that sense; it only carries the sense of Chaitya of the Buddhas and the Jainas.

Disciple: In the Synthesis of Yoga, in the fourth chapter about the “Four Aids” you have mentioned there “Chaitya Guru”, the inner guide.

Disciple (1): In Vaishnavite literature it means the portion,— Amsha — of the Divine which guides a man. It is called Chaitya Guru.

Sri Aurobindo: I wanted to know if the word has a fixed connotation. If it has not, then one can use the word “Chaitya Purusha” for the “Psychic being”. It has the advantage of carrying both the functions of the Psychic being: it is the direct portion of the Divine in the human and it is also the being that is behind the Chitta.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the other day I was looking over the Karma Yogin series with an idea of correcting and it seemed to me as if somebody else had written the book!

Disciple (2): Perhaps he means not his present self but some past personality which is now gone or absorbed.

Sri Aurobindo: It is always very disappointing to read one’s own writing. One feels how ignorant one was!

Disciple (1): But the writing can be recast, though it might mean a lot of labour.

Disciple (1): Did you read the last issue of the Rupam? There O. C. Gangooly says that he has found the reason for the Mithuna — a pair of male and female — being kept in all the temples in {{0}}India[[Ref: Rupam, April-July 1925; “The Mithunar in Indian art” “Mithunai Vibhushayet” Agni Purana (Bibliotheca Indica)]].

Sri Aurobindo: I think he says at one place that it typifies the male and the female — the Purusha and the Prakritiaspect without which there is no creation.

But at one place he speaks of the Mithuna verging on the obscene. But I did not see anything of that sort in the illustrations.

Disciple: No, there are no such illustrations; but I think he has not given the worst ones. They are at Puri and Konarak they say.

Sri Aurobindo: Has anyone seen them? You know, Gangooly wanted me to recast the chapters on Architecture and {{0}}Sculpture[[From A Defence of Indian Culture — subsequently published under the title The Foundations of Indian Culture.]] cut out the strictures on William Archer and give the remainder serially in the Rupam.

Sri Aurobindo: Because, he said, Archer need not be answered. Of all the chapters on Indian art I think those on Architecture and Sculpture are the best. While writing the chapter on painting I was tried and besides I have a great natural predilection for the other two arts. Appreciation

of painting I cultivated afterwards, I acquired it — I had not got it by nature as that of the other two arts. And, even then, in painting I have to get at the spirit and I can get at it — but I do not know about the technique. In architecture also I do not know the technical terms but yet I can seize on it.

Disciple: You have dwelt on sculpture, architecture and painting, but you have left music to sing itself.

Sri Aurobindo: You may as well ask me to write about trigonometry! (laughter) I can get at the spirit of the singer and catch the emotion; but in appreciating art that is not enough.

(After some time) In these matters of natural predilections, we have an element from our past lives; one always brings something from the past.

I got my true taste for painting in Alipore jail. I used to meditate there and I saw various pictures with colours during meditations and then the critical faculty also arose in me. What I mean is that I did not know intellectually about painting but I caught the Spirit of it.

Sri Aurobindo: Are these pictures of Abanindranath his latest ones? They have given me a peculiar impression.

Disciple: They are his paintings and portraits since 1923. Do you find that he has deteriorated?

Sri Aurobindo: No. But they all seem to be from the vital world. Of course, all Abanindranath’s paintings are from the vital world. But this time they appear to come from a peculiar layer of the vital plain. I felt something

like that vaguely, so I asked the Mother and she pointed out that it was the colouring which was responsible for the feeling or impression.

Disciple: We have many paintings of Nandalal dealing with Puranic subjects. But I find one or two are failures.

Sri Aurobindo: In Nandalal’s paintings you find the background of a strong mental conception; while Abanindra — nath’s paintings are from the vital world.

I would like to see some of his earlier works. My idea is that in Abanindra’s case the inspiration from Ajanta is not so strong as that of the Moghul and Rajput schools.

Disciple: Of late he has been leaning more towards the Moghul school. Besides, he has been changing his technique so often that it is very difficult to say which style has really impressed him. His subjects may be such as to suggest Mahomedan influence.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not think that the impression is due to the subject at all. It is due to the peculiar layer of the vital plane to which the pictures belong. For instance, take his “Bride of Shiva”. It is an Indian — a Hindu — subject. But it is not the bride of Shiva at all in his painting. If at all it is Shiva’s bride, it is “the bride of Pashupati”: Shiva’s bride from the vital plane.

Disciple: Abanindranath very early began his work in the Kangra style. I mean his Krishna Lila paintings.

Sri Aurobindo: All arts in general and poetry and painting in particular belong to the vital plane.

Sri Aurobindo: No. It does not come from the mental plane; at best it is from the vital mind — or vital mental — that it comes.

Sri Aurobindo: It is very well written and is illuminating. But I don’t understand why he says that those who are not acquainted with Indian subjects would not understand Nandalal’s Shiva-paintings. He seems to suggest that knowledge of the Puranic tradition would help in appreciating his works. But one need not know all traditions to appreciate art.

Disciple: We do not have to know Christian traditions in order to appreciate European art. This article is perhaps in answer to adverse criticism by someone who said that there is no art in the new art-school in Bengal.

Sri Aurobindo: Nobody need answer ignorant criticism. In Europe itself there is a radical departure from Realism, and all bondage to tradition has disappeared.

A few paintings of Picasso were shown to Sir Aurobindo. These were four or five only: a man and a woman; a human figure with a birdlike face and a tuft of hair; and a figure with three eyes, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: There is some power of expression in the picture of a man and a woman. The other looks like a Brahmin Pandit with a Tiki — tuft of hair — on the head. The face indicates the animal origin and its traces in him. One eye seems Prajna Chakra and the other some other centre.

When these artists want to convey something then arises the real difficulty for the onlooker. How on earth is one to make out what the artist means, even if he means to convey something? It is all right if you don’t

want to convey anything but express and leave people to feel about it as they like. In that case one gets an impression and even though one can’t put it in terms of mind you can feel the thing, as with the two figures. But if you convey something and say like the Surrealist poets “Why should a work of art mean anything?” or “Why do you want to understand?” then it becomes difficult to accept it. Take the other picture of the Brahmin Pandit, as I call it. It would have been all right without the eyes. But the eyes, or what seems to be the eyes, at once challenge the mind to think what it means!

(Turning to a disciple) Did you see a Futuristic painting representing a man in different positions? The artist wanted to convey the idea of movement! It is most absurd. Each art has its own conditions and limitations and you have to work under those conditions and limitations.

Disciple: Elie Faure, the famous art critic, has an idea that France sacrificed her architectural continuity of five hundred years for securing the first place in painting in Europe.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true that France leads in art. What she initiates others follow. But architecture has stopped everywhere.

Sri Aurobindo: Then, you are also a piece of architecture: everything in you is made of parts. The motor-car also is architecture!

Disciple: I had occasion to write to O. C. Gangooly who advised me not to undertake any publication on art in India as it is bound to be a loss. One runs into debt, art is a forbidden fruit. People don’t understand it.

Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps people look at art with the same view as X looks at philosophy.

Disciple: Elie Faure says that the Greek arts — sculpture and painting — are the expression of passions and have no mystery about them.

Sri Aurobindo: What is he talking about? He seems to have a queer mind. Where is the expression of passions in Greek sculpture? On the contrary it is precisely their restraint that is very evident everywhere in this art. The Greek are well-known for restraint and control. Compared to other peoples’ art it is almost cold. It is its remarkable beauty that saves them from coldness. This applies to the period from Phidias to Praxiteles. Only when you come to the Laocoon that you find the expression of strong feeling or passion.

Disciple: He also argues, rather queerly, that the poisoning of Socrates, the banishment of Themistocles and the killing of other great men were an expression of unrestrained passion. Greek life was far from settled at that time.

Disciple: He means to say that the Greek mind that found expression in the arts was such a mind.

Sri Aurobindo: On the other hand it is a sign of their control, because they checked their leaders from committing excesses. When two leaders became powerful in combination they ostracised one.

A book on Modern German Art (Pelican Series) was shown to Sri Aurobindo — particularly the illustrations.

Sri Aurobindo: As for the “Parents” it does not do much credit to the artist. I do not understand why he should draw the portraits of two old ugly people unless he wants to do it from a sense of filial duty.

Sri Aurobindo: You mean that his parent’s portrait explains his art! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: The picture shows the effect of being watched! And that other illustration, the “Gold Fish,” is good as decoration but as painting, no!

Disciple: It looked at first sight to me a curtain or an embroidered piece of, cloth for a door or a window curtain.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is very good as a decorative design. In pictures like “Early Hours” you find the idea but it could be less violent and less ugly in execution. (After some time) One can’t blame Hitler for suppressing these paintings. Germany has lost much. It is surprising how this ugliness is spreading everywhere. Is the art of Bengal also like this?

Disciple: Perhaps the art in Bengal is not so bad as the poetry — except that of Tagore.

Disciple: They are trying to be Eliotian (imitators of T. S. Eliot).

Good poetry is not being read. X’s book came out and was very well reviewed and yet the book is not selling.

Sri Aurobindo: So they don’t read poetry in India as they don’t in England. Nowadays, at least for the last 20 years and more, the field has been captured by fiction — novels, short — stories etc.

Disciple: Is it possible to write spiritual stories, I mean stories with a spiritual content?

Sri Aurobindo: Many occult stories, have been written but I do not know of any spiritual stories. They say Marie Corelli used to have that background in her stories though she is not comparable to Lytton in literary merit.

She was very popular but nobody reads her stories now. There was one Victoria Cross who used to write erotic novels and she thought there were only two figures in literature: Victoria Cross and Shakespeare! (laughter)

Disciple: Is it possible to write a spiritual story? We know it is possible to write a story with a deep religious background like Les Miserables.

Disciple: Our friend X has taken up an episode that occurred here, and tried to bring out the spiritual struggle of the individual and contrasted it with the standpoint of the worldly people, i.e. the parent’s standpoint.

Disciple: Some people here think that he has not done justice to the case of the worldly people. He has made it weak.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you find it a very strong standpoint? It is simply egoistic insistence, you may call it strong insistence if you like, but it is hardly a strong point of view. I can understand the standpoint of someone who does not believe in spirituality and insists on moral and social values; he has no belief in anything else. There can be a stand, and a strong stand, from the artist’s

point of view in that. For instance, in the Bride of Lammermoor Scott has tried to bring out a mother’s point of view. The daughter falls in love with some young man but the mother does not approve of the match and she is married off to someone else. Here you see the mother does not care for the daughter’s happiness but is concerned with family honour and is trying to secure connection with a high family. This point of view rendered in character has made the book interesting.

Roger Fry’s idea about the formal elements in the art of painting was conveyed to Sir Aurobindo

Disciple: These new movements in the plastic arts correspond to similar movements in the literary arts, especially in poetry. In all these arts the modernists are trying to reduce everything to manipulation of technique. Roger Fry takes the illustrations of the Impressionist Art which he tries to appreciate on the basis of these formal elements and yet he admits that he found it lacking in structure and design.

Sri Aurobindo: But I thought the Impressionists were trying to convey the impression by mass of colour and did not require any design.

Disciple: He seems to have found that Impressionist paintings had no body and so he went to classical art for design and structure. He found them there. But even there he tries to separate what he calls the pure aesthetic feeling from the other overtones of painting.

He takes as an illustration the “Transfiguration” of Michael Angelo. He argues that aesthetically it is not necessary for any one to know Christian mythology in order to enjoy the picture. These are “overtones”

and have nothing to do with the pure aesthetic feeling of the picture. The disposition of the mass, the composition, the design, the colour-scheme — these alone contribute to the pure aesthetic value of the picture.

Sri Aurobindo: Does he mean to say that Michael Angelo painted it keeping in view the masses and the colour-scheme? I thought aesthetics had something to do with beauty and beauty is not only formal. It is also beauty of the emotion, in fact, beauty of the whole thing taken together.

Disciple: These modern critics have taken some of the formal elements of beauty and have tried to reduce all art to them. Form is certainly an element of beauty, but there are other things also. Roger Fry pays a great compliment to Tolstoy for pointing out that art is not in the object and the only purpose of art is communication. Art mainly conveys emotion from the artist to other men.

Sri Aurobindo: The first part is acceptable: for example, beauty may not be in the object but it is the artist’s vision that sees beauty in it and conveys it through art.

Disciple: Roger Fry does not admit Tolstoy’s contention that it is the moral implications of the emotion aroused by the work of art that art important.

Disciple: The one good result of modern artistic movements has been that representative art and imitation of Nature are no longer considered the highest art. Now they admit that the artist can take what he likes from Nature for his purpose and convey through his creation whatever he has to say.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is how you find some of them representing the human form with a few lines and very imperfectly putting force into it or emotion.

Disciple: He also speaks about the Primitives. He says that

their painting tries to convey their idea of man. To them man as they saw him was not interesting or important, but the idea of man in their mind was important. In the primitive man’s idea the head and the legs and the arms had importance but the torso had no importance.

Disciple: Roger Fry refers to the cave-paintings in the Pyrenees mountains which are supposed to be ten thousand years old and the bushman’s paintings in Africa. He speaks of them as having an idea of the form and also the ability to convey it.

Sri Aurobindo: What they had was not an “idea” but some perception, or rather some first essential perception of the object and it is that which they tried to convey. You can call it basic perception. Because the modernists believe that there is an idea behind the primitives they call Indian art conceptual. They think that somebody wanted to convey the “idea of peace” and so he invented the figure of Buddha! But it is not an idea at all, it is “the experience” that is meant to be conveyed. Vision and experience are the creative elements of Indian art.

What modernist art is trying to do — at least what it began with — is to convey the vital sensation of the object, very often it happens to be the lower vital sensation. But it is the first effort to get behind the physical form.

Disciple: Yes, it was Cézanne who began the modernist movement, It was fortunate that he had not to depend on his art for his maintenance. He had no training in art and yet he was never easily satisfied with his work. His friend Vollard gave him about 150 sittings at the end of which Cezanne said he was not dissatisfied with the shirt-collar! In his still life study of the “Apples” he wanted to convey the very ripeness and warmth of the fruit.

Sri Aurobindo: But, as the Mother says, much of modernist art is “erotic folly”.

Disciple: Roger Fry argues that as Impressionism was lacking in elements of structure and design Cubism followed almost as a natural corrective.

Sri Aurobindo: So he thinks that Cubism supplies the element of design in Nature, doesn’t he?

Disciple: He himself questions whether a picture is meant to convey merely abstract elements. In fact he asks if it is possible to have a “song” without meaningful words and without being set to music.

Sri Aurobindo: Evidently not, unless you repeat the letters of the alphabet and call it a song.

Sri Aurobindo saw a volume containing Cezanne’s paintings and one of the painters of the 20th century representing the most modern trend of the artistic movement in Europe.

He found Cézanne “remarkable” in his portraits, all of them were “fine” and “showed power”.

In the evening he said he liked Matisse also. But he found “three things general about modern art: l. Ugliness. 2. Vulgarity or coarseness. 3. Absurdity”.

Sri Aurobindo: In their “nude” studies it is a very low sexuality which they bring out. They call it “Life”! One can hardly agree. Even in the ugliest corner of life there is something fine and even beautiful that saves it. This art explains why France and Europe have gone down.

When these artists go further in the application of their theories than they become absurd.

And what they mean by “inner” truth of the object is most often the “subconscient” or “lower vital”. There

is no objection to suppressing the non-essentials of a form in a work of art. In fact all great artists do it. But the work that you produce must have aesthetic appeal.

The talk turned on the subject of Indians writing English poetry. Sri Aurobindo remarked that when he was conducting the Arya he received heaps of poems.

Sri Aurobindo asked about Hindi literature, inquiring whether it carried the modern spirit in its works.

Disciple: It contains the element of nationalism, that is the new strain; as for the rest there is not much that can be called modern. The form at present is mainly lyrical.

Sri Aurobindo: Has he written anything new recently except his inexhaustible dramas that are no dramas?

Sri Aurobindo: His poetry now a days is not what it was before. He gets an idea and then he goes on weaving image after image. There is more language than substance. Besides, he has not the self-control to put in only what is necessary. His first collection was very good. He has language and he knows the technique; but it is high time he condensed his expression instead of diffusing it as he is doing.

Disciple: What name can be given to your philosophy — viśistādvaita, kevalādvaita, or śuddhādvaita?

Sri Aurobindo: Or, Dwaitawada of Madhvacharya or Dwaitd dwaita of Nimbarka? Unfortunately all philosophy is mental, i.e., intellectual, while the Supramental is not mental. Therefore, it is not possible to express it completely — because the mind can’t. Even when Supermind takes up the task, it only gives indications, gives to the mind some side of itself, some aspect.

Sri Aurobindo: Arya was written because of Richard. After starting it he went away and left me alone to fill 64 pages per month. The Life Divine is not philosophy but fact. It contains what I have realised and seen. I think many people would object to calling it philosophy. Of course, there are elements of all the systems in the Arya. But Supermind would remain even if the whole of the Arya were rubbed out or had never been written. Supermind is not to be philosophised about, it is to be lived.

Disciple: When one lives in the Supermind then there will be perfect expression of it, I believe.

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. I have been telling you it can’t be fully expressed. It can be experienced and lived. Do you think living it is inferior to expressing it?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. In music, for instance, something of it can be expressed but then to the ordinary mind it might convey nothing. To the man who is ready, or who has some glimpses of it, it may convey much more than to another. That is not because of the thing expressed but because the man is able to go from what is expressed to what is behind the expression.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it can also be. Art and poetry can be

the media though they are not adequate. But one who attains the Supermind does not sit down to write philosophy about it. That is just like using poetry to teach grammar, so as to take all poetry out of it Even when Supermind finds expression it would carry its meaning only to the man who knows; as the Veda puts it, “Words of the Seer which reveal their mystery only to the Seer”. One can’t express the whole Supramental Truth but something of it can come through.

Disciple: The other day you spoke about the psychic element in poetry. Is it that which constitutes the highest expression of Truth in poetry?

Sri Aurobindo: There are different types of poetry. That is to say, poetry there may be and yet the psychic element in it may not be strong.

Sri Aurobindo: It is poetry on the plane of intuitional vision. There is rhythm, force and other elements of poetry in it, but the psychic element is not so prominent. It is from a plane much higher than the mental. It moves by vision on the plane of intuition, though there are passages in which you may find the psychic element. It is a wide and calm plane,— it also moves you but not in the same way as the poetry which contains the psychic feeling. It has got its own depth — but psychic poetry differs from it in its depth and feeling.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, one can say so. It moves you differently. Vedic poetry is more impersonal. The centre of vision in psychic poetry is the centre between the eyebrows, in Vedic poetry it is from above the mind. Take, for instance, the hymn: “Covering after covering becomes conscious, in the lap of the Mother he entirely sees.” Here you find the whole process of opening up the consciousness to the

Truth, and the descent of the Light into the being, but it is different from psychic poetry.

Disciple: In Vedic poetry the psychic feeling comes to the front in hymns expressing aspiration for Agni or for Surya.

Disciple: Can you give an instance of psychic poetry? Is there a psychic element in Vidyapati?

Sri Aurobindo: It is from the plane of inspiration. It is inspiration of knowledge. The Upanishads are all very high poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: Well what do you mean by the highest poetry? Two things are essential for high poetry: vision and beauty, and of course, the power of expression must be there.

Sri Aurobindo: I mentioned vision and beauty as two necessary elements but they do not belong to one plane only, they may belong to various planes.

There must be for great poetry power of beauty, power of vision, power of expression — it may be on any plane. For example, it may be on the plane of vital aesthesis, or any other. All poetry need not be psychic.

Sri Aurobindo: Psychic? I don’t think there is much psychic element in his poetry. Vital and aesthetic if you like,— that he has in an extraordinary degree and you find even a certain dignity of thought.

A few of Tagore’s last poems were read, which were supposed to bear the burden of experience.

Sri Aurobindo: Nothing much, except that he speaks of the Light in the first poem.

Disciple: In the rest he speaks of losing the body-consciousness and the world-memory getting fainter and fainter.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, if it is so, why does he not speak about it? The poem is hazy. The Vaishnava poets state their experience clearly in their poems.

Disciple: D told me that Tagore in the agony of pain tried to concentrate hard and he could mentally separate himself from the pain and get relief.

Disciple: In another of his early poems also he speaks of an experience; one day on the terrace of the Jorasanko House he felt a sudden outburst of joy and the whole of nature and life seemed to him bathed in Ananda. The poem “Nirjharer

Swapna Bhanga” is the outcome of the experience.

Sri Aurobindo: That is also a spiritual experience. What does he say in that poem?

Disciple: He speaks of a fountain that flows breaking all the barriers rushing towards the sea.

Sri Aurobindo: But why did he adopt the symbol? Did the experience come with the symbol?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know whether the symbol came with the experience. The experience should have been put as he felt it. Nobody reading the poem would realise that it was written from experience. He tends to become decorative and the danger of decoration is that the main thing gets suppressed by it.

Take the line from the Rig Veda which I have quoted in The Future Poetry “Raising the living and bringing out the dead.” When one reads it, it becomes clear at once that it is written from experience. Usha, the goddess of dawn, raises higher and higher whatever is manifested, and she brings out all that had remained latent into manifestation. Of course, one has to become familiar with the symbol in order to grasp the truth.

Disciple: But mystic poetry is bound to be a little hazy and vague. Tagore has also written simple and clear poems in his Gitanjali, e.g. “amar matha nata kare dao”. Perhaps one can write that sort of poem mentally also.

Disciple: You once spoke of mystic poetry as “moonlight” and of spiritual poetry as “sunlight”.

Sri Aurobindo: No. I meant “occult poetry”. There are two kinds of mystic poetry: occult-mystic and spiritual-mystic. That poem of mine about the moon and the star or “The Bird of Fire” is occult mystic. In “Nirvana”, for instance, I have put exactly what Nirvana is.

One is at liberty to use any symbol or image but what one says must be very clear through these symbols or images.

Here images are used but it is very clear to any one knowing the symbol what is meant and it is the result of genuine experience.

It is an extraordinary passage expressing perfectly a spiritual experience. Indra is the Divine Mind and as one ascends higher and higher in it or on it, all that has to be done becomes clearly visible. One who has that experience can at once see how perfectly true it is and that it must have been written from experience and not from imagination.

Disciple: Cannot one write about spiritual truths sometimes, even without having any experience or being conscious of them?

Sri Aurobindo: One can if one has a tradition inspiring him or a mystic part in his make-up.

Disciple: A man called Ferrar passed through Calcutta when the

Alipore trial was going on. Was he known to yon in England?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he was my classmate at Cambridge, but he could not see me in the court when the trial was going on. All the accused were put into a cage lest they should jump out and murder the Judge! Ferrar was a barrister practising at. Singapore or Malaya. He saw me in the court-cage and was very much concerned and did not know how to get me out.

It was he who gave me the clue to the hexameter verse in English. He read out a line from Homer which he thought was the best line and that gave me the swing of the metre. There is really no successful hexameter in English. Matthew Arnold and his friends have attempted it but they have failed.

Sri Aurobindo: Plenty of people have written it. But this is dactylic hexameter,— the metre in which the epics of Homer and Virgil are written. It has a very fine movement and is very suitable for the epic. I have tried it and X and Y have seen and considered it a success. I remember just a few lines: —

Sri Aurobindo: When we three brothers were staying at Manchester. I began to write for the Fox family Magazine.

I was very young. It was an awful imitation of somebody I don’t remember. Then I went to London where I began to write poetry. Some of the poems then written are published in Songs to Myrtilla.

Sri Aurobindo: They don’t teach metre at school, I began to read and then write poetry by following the sound. I am not a prosaist like X.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he, Lawrence Binyon, Stephen Phillips were all poets. But he did not come to very much, though he brought out a book — Prima Vera — in conjunction with others like Binyon and it was well spoken of. But 1 dare say my brother stimulated me to write poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he was. Mono Mohan used to visit him very often in the evenings and he used to describe Mano Mohan in his childish way: “a young Indian panther in Evening brown”!

Wilde was as brilliant in conversation as he was in writing. Once some of his friends came to see him and asked him how he had passed the morning. He described at length his visit to the Zoo and gave a graphic description of what he had seen, the animals and other things. Then at the end Mrs. Wilde put in in a small voice — “But how could you say that, Oscar, when you have been with me all the morning?”

There is another story of Wilde. Once a proof was sent to him for correction. He wrote to the press, “I have put in a comma.” Then the second proof came and

he sent it back with the remarks, “I have taken out the comma.”

Disciple: Is is true that the epic now, after Milton, will tend to be more subjective?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is so. The idea that an epic requires a story has been there for long, but the story as a subject for an epic seems to be exhausted. It will have to be more subjective and the element of interpretation will have to be admitted.

Disciple: There is an idea that the form of the epic may be a combination of epic and drama, or may be a series of odes in combination like the one written by Meredith.

Sri Aurobindo: There has been an effort by Victor Hugo. His La legende des siecles is epic in tone, in thought and movement. And yet it is not given its right place by the critics. It does not deal with a story but with episodes. That is the only epic in the French language.

Disciple: Some maintain that as there is no story in Dante’s Divine Comedy it is not an epic.

Sri Aurobindo: It is an epic. Paradise Lost has very little story and very few incidents, yet it is an epic. At present men demand something more than a great story from an epic.

Sri Aurobindo: The first draft of it would have been an epic — if he could have kept to the height and finished the poem. But in the second draft there is already a drop — a decline from the epic height.

Disciple: There have been Indian writers of English poetry. What do you think of them?

Sri Aurobindo: They do write poetry in English and it may even be successful, but it is not the real man who is speaking. Very few can do it in another language, Sarojini Naidu

had a small range but had the capacity to express herself.

Disciple: The general impression is that poetry is not in vogue in England, or perhaps anywhere else.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true; poetry is not read in England today. Somebody sent my poems to a publisher who gave them to his reader. He said: “They are remarkable poems and have a new element in them. But I don’t advise their publication. If the writer has written anything in prose it is better to publish it first and then the poems may go.”

Disciple: Harm’s poems were sent to Masefield but got only lukewarm praise from him. He said they were “interesting”.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally Poet — Laureates are uninteresting: Very few are like Wordsworth and Tennyson. Masefields’ poems are Georgian rhetoric.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a very good poem; it is an exercise in Epic. I remember his Earthly Paradise which is exceedingly fine. There is a tendency to run down Morris, because he derived his inspiration from the Middle Ages as the Victorian age did not give him any subject. Shelley and Keats both tried to bring in the epic with the subjective element, but they failed because they tried to put it in the old forms.

Disciple: Toru Dutt has written poetry in English and was well-spoken of for some time.

Sri Aurobindo: She has written poetry,— not as an Indian writing in English but like an Englishwoman. But in England no one considers her a great poet. The only vigorous poetry she wrote was about the German invasion of France. That is because of her great sympathy for

France. I remember her phrase for France: “The head of the human column” and “Atilla’s own exultant hordes” for the Germans.

After reading some of the modernist poetry I am not surprised that poetry is not read today.

A letter to one of the poet-disciples was received from Tagore in which he had tried to make the following points:

i. Those who try to express high spiritual truths in poetry tended to create something new — a novelty — and, therefore, there was ceṣṭāḥ, effort, in their writings.

ii. A true literary architect would build rather on the common earth of common humanity — “jana sadharana” — and not insist on building on “Kanchan Jangha” — Himalayan heights.

iii. He suggested that the “cira puratana dhara” — “the age — old way” — in literature should be the guide.

Sri Aurobindo: I believe those who have experience or vision of spiritual truth, when they do express themselves in poetry, try to reproduce it as they see it and make no effort — ceṣṭāḥ — to make themselves understood. So the work is not a result of effort. And it is just this that makes their poetry difficult for others.

And as to his second point about building on common earth, it may be that the poet may not build for all, he may have a private chapel. The artist creates moved by an inner urge, not according to any ulterior motive, or consideration for the mass.

Disciple: Tagore also says that even if the artist sees a heavenly vision he will build his heaven on earth.

Disciple: About art Kalelker’s contention is that it is a

vessel. His idea is that the food is more important than the vessel in which it is served.

Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps that is Tagore’s idea too. But there can’t be art without form. If you have substance only then it is only substance and not art. An artist tries to give body to his vision and you can’t separate the soul from the body. These images — vessel and food — can be applied to physical processes, not to any inner process like art-creation.

Disciple: When he speaks of the “cira puratana dhara” — “the age — old way” in literature, he forgets that he himself would have said when he began his new style that he did not care for the “cira puratana” way, as it is puratana — “old” — and that he himself was “nitya nutana” — “ever new and fresh” — the same old truth expressing itself through ever new forms.

Sri Aurobindo: Sometimes poets themselves get into a groove and are unable to appreciate anything new.

Disciple: Mahatma Gandhi at one of the literary conferences in Gujarat, 1920, asked the writers: “What have you done for the man who is drawing water from the well?”

Sri Aurobindo: What has he done for himself? I am afraid he has not done very much.

Most of these people forget that everybody in England does not understand Milton and that the ordinary man has to prepare himself to understand high poetry.

Disciple: Tagore says that even if what you have to give is Amrita — ambrosia — it must be eatable by the ordinary man.

Sri Aurobindo: But people also must have capacity to understand and enjoy noble literature.

Disciple: Kalelker in a recent article has tried to make

out that Valmiki wanted to serve Janata, humanity — and so he recited the Ramayana from cottage to cottage! I can never understand this idea. I can’t imagine Valmiki doing it. When did he find the time to write the Ramayana, if he was reciting it from place to place?

Sri Aurobindo: But where does Kalelker find his authority for saying so? The Ramayana was not recited to the mass by Valmiki: It was the reciters who popularised it.

Disciple: He refers to some verse in the Ramayana which describes how the Rishis heard the Ramayana and gave Valmiki a Kaupin — loin cloth, Kamandalu and a Parnakuti — thatched house.

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! But the Rishis are not jana sadharana — ordinary people; they lived apart and had reached a very high spiritual status. Is Kalelker understood by the masses?

Disciple: I believe, formerly, Tagore had not got this idea of jana sadharna — the common man.

Sri Aurobindo: No. He had been always speaking of the “viswa manava” — “the universal man”. It is not the same as jana sadharana. In the Vishwa Manava all the best people, as well as the lowest of humanity, are included. Perhaps in the jana sadharana only the lowest remain.

Disciple: It is the proletarian idea of literature coming with the Socialistic and Communistic ideology. Or, perhaps it is the echo of Vivekananda’s daridra-nārāyaṇa — the divine as the poorest.

Disciple: He at least had the idea of nārāyaṇa while he served them — but nowadays the unfortunate part is that Narayana is lost sight of,— only the daridra — the poorest — remain.

Some time back there was an article in Hindi “Kasmai devaya havisa vidhema” — “To which God

shall we make our offering?” and the writer answered: “janata Janardanaya” — “to the average humanity which is God”. Thus Janardana — God — is to be equated to janata — humanity — which is ignorant and imperfect. It almost seems that according to these people God outside janata — average humanity — does not exist!

Disciple: And they don’t try to raise the janata — the common man — to janardanatwa — divinity. Every time they try to go down to its level. It does not seem possible to serve it by going down to its level.

Sri Aurobindo: Take Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven Everybody does not understand it: does it follow that Thompson is not a great poet? Or take the Upanishads. They deal with one subject only and have one strain: can we say, therefore, that it is not great poetry?

Sri Aurobindo: Homer has written on war and action. Can one say that those who write on many subjects are greater than Homer? Sappho wrote only on one subject: therefore can we say she is not great? What about Milton and Mirabai?

Disciple: What Tagore wants to say is that to be a perfect poet one must have variety.

Sri Aurobindo: In that case we have to conclude that no poet is perfect. Even Shakespeare has his limitations. Browning has variety. Can we, therefore, say that he is greater than Milton?

Disciple: In considering the greatness of a poet, depth and height and variety have to be considered.

Sri Aurobindo: Height and depth — yes. But why compare greatnesses? Each one writes in his own way.

Disciple: We heard from you that some people consider Blake greater than Shakespeare — is it correct?

Sri Aurobindo: I did not say that. What Housman says is that Blake has more pure poetry than Shakespeare.

Sri Aurobindo: He means that Blake’s poetry is not vital or mental, i.e. intellectual, but comes from beyond the Mind and expresses spiritual and mystic experience.

Disciple: Since the two deal with quite different spheres, can the comparison be valid? Or, if Blake really has more pure poetry, then can be he said to be greater than Shakespeare?

Sri Aurobindo: Shakespeare is superior in one way, Blake in another. Shakespeare is greater because he has a greater poetic power and more creative force, while Blake is more expressive.

Sri Aurobindo: “Creative” may be something which gives a picture of life creatively, representing the life-situation of the Spirit. “Expressive” is that which is just the expression of feeling, vision or experience, In The Hound of Heaven you get a true creative picture. Blake is confused and was a failure when he tried to be creative in his prophetic poems.

Disciple: Did you write to X that in life Shakespeare is everywhere and Blake nowhere?

Disciple: But you said, for instance, that Yeats can be considered greater than A.E. because of greater style.

Disciple: Then, there is some standard — say, power of rhythm, expression, subject, form, substance, variety, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: If one has all form and no substance, is he greater than one who has substance and no form? Some say Sophocles is greater than Shakespeare, others say Euripides is greater. There are others, again, who say Euripides is nowhere near Sophocles. How can you say whether Dante is greater than Shakespeare?

Sri Aurobindo: So there cannot be a universal standard. Each one goes by his feeling or opinion or liking.

Disciple: Abercrombie tries to give a general criterion. Only one point I remember just now: he says that if the outlook of the poet is negative and pessimistic, his poetry cannot be “great” — e.g. Hardy.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t see why. Usually, of course, great poets are not pessimistic,— they have too much life-force in them; but generally every poet is dissatisfied with something or other and has some element of pessimism in him. Sophocles said, “The best thing is not to be born.” (laughter)

Disciple: But we want you to give us the criterion or criteria by which one can decide the greatness of poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not be satisfied with what I have said? All I can say is that X has a greater mastery over the medium and greater creative force.

Sri Aurobindo: Poetry is creative where it gives a complete picture of life as in The Hound of Heaven. There you have such a picture of the life of a man pursued by God.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by mystic? Occult? Symbolic? There are various kinds of mystic poetry.

Disciple: It is difficult to bring in creative force in mystic or symbolic poetry.

Disciple: That poem in which he speaks of the wings of the swan being stuck to the frozen ice so that it cannot fly.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no creative force in it; it is descriptive and expressive. In lyrical poetry it is generally difficult to give that creative force. In sonnet form it is only in a series of sonnets as in Meredith’s sonnets on “modern love,” that one can put in creative force.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in epics, dramas, series of sonnets, as I said. But modern poets say that long poems are not poetry! Only in short poems you get the essence of pure poetry!

Disciple: Some of the moderns have themselves written

long poems. Among Indian poets Tagore would score high as he has great creative force.

Sri Aurobindo: Tagore is essentially a lyrical poet, and has no more creative force in his poetry than in his drama. One of his long poems, debatar grash I remember, was very finely descriptive but it did not create anything.

Disciple: Is not X creative? He has traced the growth of consciousness from the ordinary level to the Transformation by turning to the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the description of an idea. In fact, very few poets are creative.

Disciple: I would like to understand more clearly your idea of creative poetry. Don’t you find in Tagore’s “jete nahi dibo” a great creative force?

Disciple: It is — as he said just now about Debatar grash — a very good description.

Sri Aurobindo: The girl there is created out of Tagore’s mind. For example, when you read Hamlet, you become Hamlet — you feel you are Hamlet. When you read Homer, you see Achilles living and moving and you become Achilles. That is what I mean by creativeness. On the other hand, in Shelley’s Skylark there is no skylark at all. You do not become a skylark,— through that name the poet has only expressed his own ideas and feelings. Or take his line, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” It is very fine poetry but it is not creative in the sense that it does not make you live in that truth.

Sri Aurobindo: It is feeling only. It does not create for you a living and moving world. Feeling is not enough to be creative.

Disciple: Abercrombie says that poetry should express

and carry to the reader the poet’s “experience”.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon what you mean by “experience”. An idea may be an experience, a feeling may an experience.

Disciple: In comparing Shelley and Milton he says that “Prometheus Unbound” is not as great a theme as “Paradise Lost”.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not great because Shelley does not create anything there. But the theme is equally great.

Disciple: He says that Satan and Christ are living characters created by Milton.

Sri Aurobindo: Satan is the only character he has created. His first four books are full of creative force. But Christ? — Well — I object to the claim that he ever created Christ.

Disciple: About Dante Abercrombie says that he created Beatrice and her memory was always with him.

Sri Aurobindo: What about Dante’s political life? I am sure he was not thinking of Beatrice when he was doing politics.

Disciple: Abercrombie says that a true poet passes on his experience to his readers.

Sri Aurobindo: But there are poets who neither experience nor even understand what they have written. They merely transcribe. I myself have done that. One can transmit and transcribe.

The subject was continued. Two disciples bad a discussion on the above topic and one of them did not quite catch the distinction between “creative force” and “experience” in poetry. They decided to raise the question today.

Disciple: X is not clear in his mind about “creative force” in regard to devotional poems. Why should they not be considered “creative” if one feels devotion by them?

Sri Aurobindo: Because you identify yourself with the feeling and not with the character or man as in the case of Hamlet. It must come out as a part of the poet’s personality and the reader identifies himself with the world or personality which the poet has created or the experience which he had. Of course, anything is creative in a general way.

Disciple (1): Abercrombie says that a great poet transmits his experience to the reader.

Disciple (2): But one can transmit the creative force without having oneself the experience or without being conscious?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it can be done. But people who have the creative force usually make it a part of themselves, they have the experience first and then they transcribe it.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It can be developed. Most people have it within them, but it may not manifest. In yoga, of course, it is different. Here it depends on the power of opening.

Disciple: X says that your Bird of Fire has got creative force. It is a creative symbolic poem.

Sri Aurobindo: It is for others to judge. It is not necessary to become Shiva. The point is whether you find the picture created living, i.e. do you feel it alive?

Disciple: I find it living. That is to say, it is not an idea of what Shiva is or stands for that is depicted. I find here a personality, a being.

Sri Aurobindo: That means what is created is living. But why not leave out my poetry? If you want examples, I gave you that of The Hound of Heaven and you may add Chesterton’s Lepanto.

Disciple: X says that if there is poetic force, it will be felt. I told him that everybody may not feel the force; The Hound of Heaven, for instance, won’t be appreciated by everybody.

Sri Aurobindo: Not by jana sādhārana, the common man — as yon call him. But a poet or a literary man who has taste for poetry will feel the force, unless he has a prejudice.

Sri Aurobindo: Poor creation: what sort of Ravana has he created? It is an outline of an idealised non-rakshasic Rakshasa!

Bengalis in those days were very fond of weeping. I think it was Romesh Dutt who translated “Savitri” from the Mahabharata and portrayed her as weeping, whereas in the Mahabharata there is no trace of it. Even when her heart was being sawed in two not a single tear appeared in her eyes. By making her weep he took away the very strength of which Savitri is built.

Sri Aurobindo: He thought that Vyasa had made a mess of it. About Madhusudan, I don’t say that it is not fine poetry, or that there is no force, or no thought in it. What I say is that it is not creative, it has no vital substance.

Sri Aurobindo: I was reading his book and I find it exceedingly fine poetry but in order to be called “great” that is not enough. In order to equal Tagore he must progress more in “body”. I don’t mean length. What I mean is the quality of massiveness. One can say his whole work has not got sufficient “body”. I have read his long poems also, but that element is not yet there. Yeats has not written long poems, but if you take his poems piece by piece you will see that he has sufficient “body” in his work. Tagore has added to the “body” of the world’s literature. If you take poem by poem, perhaps, X’s work may equal Tagore’s, but he has not that “body” which the latter has and which can stand by itself.

Sri Aurobindo: It is; but I mean quite another thing. For instance, if Milton had not written Paradise Lost he would have still been a great poet, but he could not have occupied so great a place as he does in English literature. Keats, some people say, would have been as great as Shakespeare, had he lived. At least there was the promise in him, but it was not fulfilled.

Disciple: Some people have demanded of Y to attempt something big, like an epic.

Sri Aurobindo: For the epic you require the power of architectural construction. With most of these poets it is yet the promise and not the fulfilment of their poetic personality.

Sri Aurobindo: You were asking me about an example of a lyrical poem which had the creative force in it. Well, I can give you two examples from Tagore though it is not usual with him to write such lyrics. His Urvashi and Parash Pathar have got that creative force — there he

has created something, not a character, but some reality of the inner life of man. What I mean is it is not simply a description. Also Nishikanta in the Gorur Gadi has created something. You see there that the “cart” is a real cart and man in it is a real man; and yet it is the “world-cart” and the “world-man” in it.

Take Shelley’s Skylark or Keats’s Nightingale. There you find that the Skylark and the Nightingale are nothing; they are only an occasion. It is the thoughts, the feelings and the images that rise in the poet’s mind that you get when you read the poem.

Disciple: I had a talk with X and he asks: How can Francis Thompson be called a great poet because he has written one poem the Hound of Heaven which is great?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by “great”? At any rate it is a great poem and one who has written a great poem is a “great” poet.

Disciple: Perhaps if you take into account the mass of his work he may not appear great. But in his Hound of Heaven he has achieved the summit of poetic art and it sums up his whole life-experience. In that sense it is great.

Sri Aurobindo: And it is not individual life but universal life — anybody who goes through spiritual life gets that experience.

The idea of greatness of poetry is difficult to standardise. The French poet Villon, if you take his poems one by one, is equal in greatness to any other great poet, but if you take his work in a mass you can’t justify his greatness. Petrarch has written only sonnets and that on one subject, and yet he is considered a great poet and given a place next to Dante. Simonides has not a single poem complete, he is known by fragments and yet he is regarded as second

to Pindar who is called the greatest lyricist. The Hound of Heaven is a far greater poem than any of Oscar Wilde’s or Chesterton’s.

Disciple: What is the real root of man’s interest in story and literature? Is it independent of Truth? If it is not, what is its purpose?

Sri Aurobindo: Literature exists for its own sake; it is an independent value. Its purpose is governed by the law of Ananda. If you bring in, or make it serve, some other purpose — say, morality or philosophy — then it does not serve its highest purpose.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in art, poetry and literature there is truth. However it is not the discovery and statement of truth in itself, but of the beauty of truth or truth as beauty.

The Law of Ananda governs these activities. Some parts of literature have their own laws: for instance, fiction. Its law is to represent life.

If the writer has spirituality in himself, it is bound to express itself in his poetry or art.

Disciple: Should then literature set before it the task of evolution towards, or an ascent to, a higher consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: Literature need not set that task before itself. It will itself be influenced automatically by the process of upward evolution and thus create higher and higher beauty and delight.

The talk centred round Lascelles Abercrombie’s idea of great poetry. His general thesis is that literature is communication of experience involving three factors:

Disciple: He says that in poetry the poet wants to transfer his experience without the least modification to others. That is to say, poetry — all literature for that matter — is not merely expression or self-expression; it is chiefly communication.

Sri Aurobindo: When a poet writes poetry he does not think of others who may read it. He should not, because then he would be influenced by their likes and dislikes. He thinks only of himself, as he should.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by experience? You mean change in his subjective consciousness due to an outer or an inner impact, don’t you? There are cases where the experience is not his own. It is something that descends or takes hold of him, or it may be even an experience imagined.

Disciple: Could an experience which is imagined be equally strong in expression as an actual experience?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends. Experience as one has it is not literature; it is too matter of fact. Generally, it is divested of its local and personal character by a great writer. Imagination can only give him a mental construction; but inspiration can give a powerful expression. In a great poet you will find it is not merely an expression, but there is an element of creation. You can’t define these things rigidly.

Disciple: They say the Mantras were heard by the Rishis. Is it the inner hearing?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is the inner hearing. Sometimes one hears a line, a passage, a whole poem, or sometimes they come down. The best poetry is always written in that way.

Disciple: Yes. I remember that line, “A fathomless beauty in a sphere of pain”, coming to me as if someone had whispered it into my ear.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite. It is the inner being but sometimes one may be deceived. Inspiration from the lower planes also can come in an automatic way.

Disciple: Oh yes. I have been deceived many times like that. Lines which came at once and automatically and which I thought high-class turned out to be ordinary by your remarks.

Sri Aurobindo: One writes wonderful poems in dream, Surrealistic poems, but when they arc written on paper they seem worthless. In Shakespeare in whom poetry always flowed, I suppose, the three lines in Henry IV invoking sleep,

leap out strikingly from the rest. There is no doubt at all that these three lines have simply descended from above without any interruption. Or, his lyric, “Take, O take those lips {{0}}away[[Take, O take these lips away.(((D-FOOTNOTE_40_150_0)))That so sweetly were foresworn;(((D-FOOTNOTE_40_150_0)))And these eyes, that the break of day,(((D-FOOTNOTE_40_150_0)))Light that do mislead the morn:(((D-FOOTNOTE_40_150_0)))But my kisses bring again, bring again(((D-FOOTNOTE_40_150_0)))Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.(((D-FOOTNOTE_R_20)))“Measure for Measure” Act IV. Scene I]]” — the whole of it has come down from above.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a certain vital glow which is really not beauty — when it is overpowering and full of personal magnetism it is dangerous.

Sri Aurobindo: Not much. Too much of vital glow and charm may be due even to the hostile forces and it may be dangerous.

Sri Aurobindo: Yet, it is; but beauty and perfection do not always go together in life.

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic element gives only a certain charm to the form, not what people ordinarily call beauty. There is a vital and a physical element in beauty and even in these there is an “inner” beauty, a certain charm, a flame in the object.

Disciple: It is said that Sri Ramakrishna’s body had a glow which he used to hide from men by covering his body. Can one say it was inner beauty?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be the light of the Spirit; that is not beauty. There are many people who are not spiritual but are beautiful and some spiritual men are not beautiful.

Disciple: What is meant by saying that the Supreme is the True, the Good and the Beautiful “satyam — sivam — sundaram?”

Sri Aurobindo: That is a different thing. The “True” can be the mental form of the Supreme Truth, the “Good” has a relation to morality. Whereas “Beauty” is different with different men, there is no one standard of beauty. There are certain things, however, which all people consider beautiful: for instance, the rose.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There is a stage in which everything has its beauty. For a perfect creation of beauty three elements are needed:

Where these three are in agreement then there is the perfect expression of the Ananda.

Sri Aurobindo: The aesthetic sense is easily purified and it can then open the path of approach to the Supreme

through beauty. It is very difficult to purify a rough and gross being.

Disciple: We have heard, and partly known, that the experience of delight is possible on the higher planes. Is it possible to experience “beauty” on these planes?

Sri Aurobindo: Beauty and delight are inalienable in the ultimate analysis, or rather in the ultimate experience on the higher planes.

Disciple: Could experience of beauty be compatible with Shankara’s conception of the Absolute?

Sri Aurobindo: In his conception experience of delight you can have, but beauty? I don’t think. There is no Laxana — the quality which is characteristic — of beauty there in the Brahman according to Shankara. There is only the Self-existent and its Delight — white delight, if you like, but the colourful play of beauty would only be a figure in it and therefore unreal.

Sri Aurobindo: On the plane of matter it seems so, but it is not true on planes of consciousness above mind. There, beauty can be formless.

Disciple: There are people who experience deep peace but no delight in the Brahmic consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: In my own case the SACHCHIDANANDA as Brahman comes more easily as a constant experience and ANANDA — delight — comes in to complete it, so to say. Delight is the essential Reality of existence.

Disciple: But many people are satisfied with the experience of the immobile aspect of the Brahman.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends. If you approach the Absolute negatively — i.e. as a negation — you reach a more and more negative value. If you take up the positive side

it leads you to a more and more positive value.

Disciple: Then why do the artists say that form is indispensable for art-creation?

Sri Aurobindo: We were speaking of the experience of beauty. But if you speak of art-creation then one can say that form is indispensable for that.

Disciple: Tagore agrees here — that form is indispensable for the creation of beauty in art.

Sri Aurobindo: But even there the form which gives the experience of beauty is not something apart from the Spirit. In the experience of the Brahman, the essential beauty is there without which the thing would not be beautiful. In the experience of beauty you can perceive two distinct elements: the form and the spiritual element of beauty. But the formal beauty is only an expression of that spiritual beauty, it is not something quite separate. Of course, the mind can make a distinction and speak of them as two distinct things.

Sri Aurobindo: One can say that spirituality is the basis of art. Art expresses, or tries to express, the soul of things. The true soul of things is the divine element in them. Then spirituality, which is the discipline to come into conscious contact with the Divine, has a place, and a big place, in art.

In a sense spirituality is the highest art, the art of life; for, it aims at creating a life of beauty pure in line, faultless in rhythm, replete with strength, illumined with light and vibrant with delight.

I was thinking how some races have the sense of beauty in their very bones. Judging from what is left to us, it seems our people once had a keen sense of beauty. For example, take poetry, or Indian wood-carving which, I am afraid, is dying now. Greece and ancient Italy had the perception of beauty. The Japanese are a remarkable people — even the poorest have got the aesthetic sense. If they produce ugly things, it is only for export to other countries. I am afraid the Japanese are losing that sense now because of the general vulgarisation. In Germany Hitler must have crushed all fine things out of existence — German music, philosophy, etc. How can anything develop where there is no freedom? I hope Mussolini has kept some sense of art.

Disciple: He is very proud of Italians as a nation of artists! A friend of mine visited Italy and found that the Italians still have a sense of beauty and art.

Sri Aurobindo: Of music also. Art and music are their passion. The mother had a remarkable experience. She was staying in North Italy for some time and was once playing on the organ all alone in a church. After she had finished, there was a big applause. She found that a crowd had gathered and was ecstatic in appreciation.

Disciple: Indian music, especially in the South, has been preserved in the temples.

Nishta (Miss Wilson) is all praise for many Indian things. She finds great beauty in the gait of Indian women. She told me, “You won’t understand it, but I have seen our European women and I can understand it better. Indian women seem to me born dancers, they have such a fine rhythm in their walk.”

Sri Aurobindo: She is quite right. I suppose it is due to their having to carry pots on their heads.

Disciple: She also praises the coloured saris of our women and finds that the women have a sense of colour.

Disciple: Sari, though graceful, is not good enough for active work, it is inconvenient.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? The Romans conquered the world with their togas. Plenty of Indian women work with saris on. When this craze for utility — that is the modern tendency — comes, beauty dies; people now look at everything from the point of utility as if beauty were nothing.

Disciple: But beauty and utility can be combined, I believe. I have found at any rate, that the European dress for men gives one a push for work and activity, while the Indian dhoti gives lethargy and a sense of ease.

Sri Aurobindo: That does not prevent the European dress from being ugly. I have seen plenty of people leading an active life with the dhoti. The most utilitarian dress is shorts and a shirt.

Disciple: But nowadays European ladies have made many innovations, they go about in shorts without stockings.

Sri Aurobindo: I see. At one time they used to cover the whole body except hands and face. I remember an incident in London. Bapubhai Majumdar was coming down from the bath-room in his hotel with his feet bare. A lady who came out of her room suddenly saw him. She ran to the manager and complained that the gentleman was going about half naked in the hotel! The manager called Bapubhai and told him not to do so! Do you know this Bapubhai — He was at Baroda.

Disciple: Yes, he was seen once being stopped by the police on the road for a breach of traffic rule. He gave such an eloquent lecture in English that the policeman was flabbergasted.

Sri Aurobindo: (laughing) That must be he: he was my

first friend in Baroda. He took me to his house and I stayed there for some time. He was a nice man, only some would say “volatile and mercurial”.

The other day there was a talk about the arūpa devás — Gods without form — and the rūpa devás and their planes. Sri Aurobindo explained that it was merely a mental way of dealing with those things. Beauty is not merely an abstraction of the mind. Of course, the mind can create a sort of division and think of beauty as an abstraction. It seems merely an idea without, as it were, any power behind it. But if you go to the plane above mind you find that all things that are abstractions in the mind are Powers and Realities there. There you find that beauty is a power of the Supreme.

Disciple: I want to know what connection this power of beauty has with Vaishnavism. Bhakti begins with emotion. Is there a connection between Bhakti and this power of beauty?

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? I don’t understand your question. Bhakti has not only the sense of beauty in it, there are many other elements besides.

Disciple: There is the emotional element but where or when does the element of beauty enter — at the beginning or at the end?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be at the beginning or at any other time. There is the emotional element, the element of faith, the element of love, of beauty, of ananda and so many other things.

Disciple: You said that “Beauty is a power of the Supreme”. I want to have some idea of that power on the plane higher than the mental.

Sri Aurobindo: Why on the higher plane only? Do you think that beauty is not a power? Do you believe that it is a mental abstraction?

Disciple: I can understand that it is a power in a certain sense on the mental, vital and physical planes. But what is it on the plane higher than the mind?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, how can I convey an idea of it to you? Beauty is beauty everywhere and it is a power wherever it may be.

Sri Aurobindo: What is it then? When you say “There is beauty in the rose,” is it something apart from the rose itself? What do you mean by it?

Disciple: I would say that it is not an idea but something connected with the life of the flower, something of the life-force in it.

Disciple: Whenever beauty of form is concerned, it is said that certain relations are required to be fulfilled, proportion, harmony, etc. Otherwise the form is not beautiful.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, that is not the whole of beauty. Neither is it the most essential element. You can say “That is how beauty expresses itself”. But it is not the essence of beauty — lines, proportions etc. are there only as its supports, especially in the beauty of forms, not so much in other kinds of beauty. There is, for instance, beauty of emotion — of thought — of force — of Ananda etc. By observing the rules about line, proportion, rhythm, harmony etc, a man does not become an artist. Every time a new creator comes into the field of art he brings something which to others appears perhaps out of proportion. Then a time comes when people begin to see and discover

new proportions and a new harmony. Even in music the same thing happens. For instance, when Wagner gave his music it sounded very unusual and, to some, discordant. But at last they found harmony and rhythm and everything else.

Similarly poetry is not some arrangement of words or ideas, it is a power which goes forth from the being of the poet.

In other religions there is a certain insistence on moral virtues, therefore they did not put the same emphasis on beauty. But in India God is the All-beautiful.

Sri Aurobindo: In the path of devotion — Bhakti Marga — in India, God is regarded as the All-beautiful. In the case of other paths it is not so.

Disciple: There is an idea that for art limitation is necessary. There can be no art if there is no restraint and every great artist imposes his own limitations by himself.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is not always true. Take the lines and forms used by art. You can say that they serve to limit the expression and there are artists who produce works of art under that kind of restraint. But it is not always so. Take, for instance, Shakespeare. At first the idea was that in his work there is no measure and harmony. It was considered bizarre. Then they found that it was a work of great art. In a poet like Shakespeare the movement is not towards limitation but rather expression — a throwing himself out to cover everything.

And a work of art is not great unless the artist is able to express the infinite through the limitations,— unless the lines and forms are not overpassed, so to say. There must be beauty of line and form but that is only the primary basis,— the earth on which you stand, but it must go beyond and express something from within.

That is what we mean when we say that a particular work of art is “cold”, though you can see that the beauty of line and form — the technique — is perfect. The work may not be sufficiently “inspired”. Take Greek art: it was their aim to put as much of inner beauty as they could in a limited form and line which had set standards. In India we had quite another standard.

Sri Aurobindo: Beauty is the Divine himself in his Anandapower seeking to express himself in perfect form. That is, perhaps, the only definition that could be given. Since you are particular about it one can say that there are several elements of beauty: one is the power of Ananda that seeks expression, the other is the form — or you can say, the manner in which it expresses itself.

Disciple: I suppose it is also necessary that the physical instrument should be prepared so that it can express perfect beauty.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the training of the physical instrument is absolutely essential because without it the work of art cannot take the perfect body.

Disciple: If we look at a man like Tagore, do you think that in a case like him also the physical instruments have to be trained, or can one say that the force which is working in such people creates its own instruments?

Sri Aurobindo: There are people who are born with their physical instrument ready. Even then a lot of training is necessary. Even if the force created its own instrument the work would be uneven — very good at times but very bad at other times.

Sri Aurobindo: Shakespeare studied all the existing dramas before he wrote his own. One cannot play the violin without training.

Disciple: Would not the Higher Power develop even the physical instrument when it comes down?

Disciple: But how is it that when a man appreciates beauty he is not conscious of it as an expression of God?

Sri Aurobindo: There are so many things of which man is not conscious. I am not speaking of what man feels, or sees or, is conscious of. I am speaking of what is behind.

Sri Aurobindo: Nor can he invent rhythms unless he knows prosody. In art, as in everything else, training is necessary; one can develop the sense of beauty consciously.

Sri Aurobindo: Not all. And even if it is there, much has to be done before it expresses itself perfectly. So many elements have to be brought together and harmonised before there can be the perfect expression.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you mean to say that when a poet writes his lines and then revises them and finds that certain things ought to be changed he is becoming artificial, or that his poetry becomes forced? Not at all.

Sri Aurobindo: No. But these arts are such that they require their stand in the vital. There may be other elements in them but the vital is indispensable. In fact, the highest poetry cannot come unless through the vital. One may take the elements from the mind or emotion or other parts according to necessity.

Sri Aurobindo: If you mean the intellectual mind it has a very little part — though it, too, has a part. The whole

process is very complicated. The first impulse is given by the vital and then there is communication with the higher mind — the intuitive faculty. Then something from there comes down to the heart and the artist again takes it up into the mind, and gives expression to it.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, some power from above. I use the word “Intuition” in the general sense for all the faculties that act; more properly it is “Inspiration”.

Disciple: In what way does the mind enter as a factor in the creation of poetry?

Sri Aurobindo: In the very highest poetry, the mind is silent; in other kinds, the mind is active but it is not the intellectual mind.

Sri Aurobindo: It is quite right that it should be gone; the new republic seems thorough and solid in its working

Disciple: I doubt if the Turks were right in taking the step because now the opinion of other Muslim countries would go against them.

Sri Aurobindo: Opinion can go to the dogs! It was not by opinion that Kamal defeated the Greeks!

Disciple: The allegiance of other Muslims to the Khilafat has all along been theoretical and the tie of sympathy very weak and had no hold on life. As a matter of fact, it was the Indian Muslims who fought against the Turks in Mesopotamia during the first world war.

Sri Aurobindo: The Amir of Afghanistan is the only external power to whom the Indian Muslims can look up.

Disciple: There are tendencies among the Muslims showing that fanaticism may disintegrate.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not sufficient because it would not change their whole outlook. What is wanted is some new religious movement among the Madans which would remodel their religion and change the stamp of their temperament. For instance, Bahaism in Persia which has given quite a different stamp to their temperament.

Next day (6th) it was announced that the Khalifa had to leave Turkey within 10 days.

Reuter had cabled: “the chief wife of the Khalifa was prostrate and the chief eunuch has been fasting for the last three days.” Sri Aurobindo laughed loudly saying “How funny this Reuter’s correspondent seems to be!”

Ismet Pasha remarked: “We are in Constantinople because we fought the Greeks and the Khalifa. Sympathy of the people was due to our being strong and not to the presence of the Khalifa.”

Sri Aurobindo: The first four were the real Khalifas. Afterwards it became a political institution.

Disciple: The fasting of the chief eunuch is a form of Satyagraha! But the deposition of the Khalifa is dramatic.

The Pondicherry politics came in for discussion. Monin Naik from Chandernagore arrived today.

Sri Aurobindo: Our people have not yet got the political sense, If they can once break the hegemony of the white

clique here then they can attempt anything afterwards.

Disciple: I tried to explain to our Chandernagore friends that all the Indians in the Council must join and shake off the white people. Then they can do anything. But somehow they did not take it well. Our people lack backbone.

Disciple: Abul Kalam and Yakub Husain are satisfied with Kamal’s action, while Pickthall and Fazlul Huque have found fault with Kamal; they have even abused and accused him

Disciple: There is a proposal to have a Khalifa who would be only the religious head.

Sri Aurobindo: Nobody will acknowledge the Khalifa unless he has power. Did you read Gandhi’s letter, to Mad Ali?

He almost congratulates him on having his daughter, sick! He does not mean it evidently, but a very strange way of writing.

Disciple: It is edited by Natarajan who is also conducting the Social Reformer in Bombay.

Disciple: When he first started the Social Reformer he was called Nitrogen and therefore an inert, odourless and colourless gas!

Disciple: It seems that the Independents and the Swarajists may join in the obstruction against Government.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There seems to be a chance. Oliver’s salt-tax speech has something to do with it.

Disciple: He says that the new assembly at Angora has no right to depose the Khalifa and that now there is even more need of the Khilafat agitation in India!

Sri Aurobindo: He says that the lion of Islam is not dead though the jackals are shouting around it.

Disciple: It would be interesting now to watch the development since Yakub Husain and others have favoured the Angora decision and Mad Ali opposes it. There may be two parties among the Muslims. The Servant points out that the new republic is secular and not religions.

Sri Aurobindo: In the first four Khalifas there was the reality of the Khilafat. They were the centres of Islamic culture and had some spirituality. After that the Umayad and other dynasties came and it became more and more religious and external, When it passed into the

hands of the Turks it became a mere political institution without the fact of it.

Disciple: The nationalists seem to be in the majority in the Indian central Assembly.

Sri Aurobindo: It does not seem to be certain yet; there is every chance that the budget would be thrown out.

Sri Aurobindo: I knew that he would. He has nothing very deep in him, only a gift of speech and sometimes he tries to show himself more intelligent than he is. He was with me at Cambridge and I have heard him speak at the College Union. He repeated during one speech three times: “The Egyptians rose up to a man”!

Disciple: In Nagpur they have granted Rs. 2/- per annum for the Minister’s pay!

Sri Aurobindo: At last the Government has come out and the Governor is taking over the transferred departments.

Disciple: In Bengal also the Governor has vetoed the resolution of the Assembly.

Sri Aurobindo: The veto is with regard to the transferred subjects. This concerns the “reserved” subjects. The Government has simply to ignore the resolution and the budget is to be certified. By the way, what is the average income of an Indian?

Sri Aurobindo: The New India is particular about giving the average income to the Ministers! If the average income increases then his pay also increases. Very fair proposal!

Disciple: So, now there is certification and taking over the transferred departments also. These Reforms are very funny! They can allow and withdraw whatever they like from the “transferred” subjects. It means they can do anything they like. Wonderful Reforms,

while the whole power is in the hands of Englishmen! (Turning to Sri Aurobindo) Do you remember what you said when the Reforms were proposed? You said: Everything given by the British up till now is a shadow and these Reforms are a huge shadow!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I {{0}}remember.[[Sri Aurobindo was pressed by Mrs. Besant to give his opinion on the Montague Chelmsford Reforms. For a long time he avoided making any pronouncement. At last, when pressed again, he wrote an article in the New India on condition that his name should not be published. So the article appeared under the name of “an Indian Nationalist”.{{1}}In that article he said in effect: “the Reforms are like a Chinese — puzzle. Even a Chinese — puzzle can be solved but this one cannot be solved. Everything given by the Government till now was a mere shadow and the Reforms are a huge shadow.”]]

Today Sri Aurobindo expressed disgust at the lukewarm attitude of Pandit Malaviya: “The whole affair is disgusting; it is characteristic of our country. They may wreck the party.”

Disciple: Every city deserves to be burnt down after an interval of 300 years according to Charaka. Calcutta is due to be burnt.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, after some years it becomes physically and morally unfit to live in.

Disciple: Mrs. Besant is bringing up each and every problem of India in her papers and at the end always insists on her idea of calling a National Convention. It seems

her panacea for everything! And the non-cooperators have been doing nothing but opposing the Swarajists.

Disciple: Some Congress men in the Godavari District have left their propaganda of non-cooperation and taken to village reconstruction because enthusiasm has waned among the people. No one comes to attend meetings, no money is subscribed to the Tilak Swaraj Fund. Khadi does not evoke response.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I had that experience in 1909 when I was in Bengal. That gave me an insight into my countrymen. After the arrests and deportations we used to hold meetings in the College Square and some sixty or seventy persons used to attend, mostly passers by; and I had the honour to preside over several of those meetings!

Disciple: In Gujarat we had the same experience in the National Educational programme. The public would not support an independent national school or college.

A Disciple reported the arrival of a Bengali teacher at Pondicherry to see Sri Aurobindo. He had joined the non-cooperation movement and stayed — in the Sabarmati Ashram for seven months and learnt spinning and weaving. He was going to Rajkot as the headmaster of the national school there.

Disciple: He is very solicitous about humanity and Wants your yoga to help humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: Humanity has, fortunately, a sound head, and so it is safe from its saviours.

Disciple: There are so many of them; and yet the wonder is that humanity is still living!

In the afternoon a Pondicherian who had returned from Saigon came and wanted that Sri Aurobindo should cure his wife by his yogic power.

Disciple: I told him that it was not possible. Then he said “What is the use of his yoga if he does not help humanity?”

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he is opposed to it because it is against Ahimsa! It is negative and not constructive. The same was said by Tagore about non-cooperation!

Disciple: C. Rajgopalachari says one yard of Khaddar means one step towards Swaraj.

Sri Aurobindo: One book will begin with how to grow cotton and end with lessons on weaving, another on cooking and another on how to clean latrines.

Disciple: The last would be in the higher standards! (laughter) In his commentary on the Gita he tries to show that the war is between good and evil tendencies in man,— it is only a figure of speech,

Sri Aurobindo: So, Sri Krishna says to Arjuna: You may kill the bad passions or evil tendencies but do not be sorry, really they are not going to be killed! Who kills whom? Thus the whole thing is an allegory. But is it?

Disciple: Did you see Gandhiji’s reply to the sub-assistant Surgeon’s letter requesting him to give up the field of action because of his ill-health? It also says that he should retire because of his need of spirituality and also because of his use of medical aid against his own declared opinions.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I read it. There is the same mixture of which I have already spoken, only by his reading of books, I am afraid, he has made it worse. There was a mixture of Tolstoi, Christianity and Jainism. Now he has added the Veda, Koran and Gita to it.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? That is his gospel. People have to see if they want to accept it. It may fail in the collectivity but he may and can follow it individually.

But, as I say, the whole turn of his mind is like that of the Europeans. I doubt if he ever had the grasp of the ideas of Indian philosophy. Besides, the whole trend of his being is vital — he always tries to put things into life and make a rule of it. That again is the European tendency,— everything to be turned into a code, a rule. Only, he puts it in Indian terms.

I don’t see any use his saying: “So long as others have not got «good Khaddar» I will not use «fine» Khaddar.” It may come to saying: “So long as others are not educated I shall not learn, or for that matter, so long as others do not get food I will starve.”

Disciple: There are disparaging reports about the political situation in Maharashtra and Andhra. People’s enthusiasm has ebbed and it is hard to find office-bearers for the Congress.

Sri Aurobindo: Our people are wonderful — they always want some excitement. They have not yet realised that politics is a serious affair and of long breath. They say: “Give us Swaraj in one year or sensation!”

Disciple: I have been in the non-cooperation movement and worked in it for some time. My own feeling is that Gandhiji would look up to St. Francis, who licked the wounds of the lepers, as his ideal.

Sri Aurobindo: Licking the leper would do the leper no good and may do harm to St. Francis.

Even in these days — apart from what our people did in the past — the Indian way is to do things but not to make it a rule of life. They do certain things to get rid of the obstructing Sanskara.

Disciple: That is what Ramakrishna did — going and sweeping the quarters of the untouchables — to get rid of the Sanskara of the Brahmin and his feeling of superiority. He did it as a part and process of sadhana.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what I mean by the Indian way — I said that once before.

The topic was Gandhiji’s statement that the Swarajists must walk out of the Congress. For being a Congressman one has to believe in the five-fold Boycott, then one has to spin, and stop drinking if he is doing it and unite with the Muslims.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He says in effect: “first, you have to believe in the five Boycotts; I tell you it is hard and not an easy thing to do.”

Sri Aurobindo: If you comply with the requirements he — says Swaraj can be easily attained, though he does not give the time — limit.

Disciple: The argument he gives is that two parties cannot carry on the Government.

Sri Aurobindo: [???]its: modern times, many European governments are carried on by coalitions.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Do you know: anything about it? I saw his article on Brahmacharya but it did not contain consistent thought. Once he says that a strong mind has a strong body and then he says that as one progresses in mental development the body must get weak.

Disciple: He wants to stick to the mental consciousenss and to the ordinary nature and tries to master the movements of nature from the mental consciousness helped, if possible, by prayer. He has hardly even a cursory acquaintance with the division of Purusha and Prakriti, so necessary to establish the basis of the spiritual life

Disciple: You know, I once conducted a prayer in Nava Vidhan Brahmo Samaj! It was greatly appreciated while I uttered absolute platitudes, I believe.

Sri Aurobindo: This kind of prayer is current in England. It is very external and mechanical.

Rasputin, the musician mystic of Russia was the subject of the talk for some time. This Rasputin had suddenly

become a spiritual man. He was a villager and suddenly got some power of the vital plane. He influenced people with his eyes. He had used his power for lower ends.

Disciple: There is a pronouncement today about the elegibility to the A.I.C.G. — All India Congress Committee.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it makes very strange reading! This method of purification which is proposed seems absurd. One can follow up this kind of proposal by saying, “All the members must produce a certificate that they have cooked their own food, cleaned their own latrine” etc.

Disciple: Tagore’s internationalism seems to have received a rude shock in China at the passing of the Japanese Exclusion Bill.

Disciple: It seems from his writing that he is an internationalist first and looks on nationalism as something dispensable.

Sri Aurobindo: But you must have nations before you can have “inter” between them.

Disciple: He seems to argue the other way round: if you work for internationalism then nationalism will take care of itself.

Disciple: It does not take care of itself — others take care of it; that is the difficulty.

Sri Aurobindo: Internationalism is all right, we accept it on its own plane. But we must have “nations” first.

Disciple: When he finds people do not accept his idea he says: “great ideals can afford to wait — their failure in such matters means nothing.”

Sri Aurobindo: It seems only a mental construction without any idea of the reality. In this way sometimes people injure the very cause for which they stand. I should be on good terms with my neighbour, but that does not mean that I should allow him to come into my house and occupy it.

Disciple: He advises the Indians to extend the hand of friendship and help Europe in its forlorn condition.

Disciple: It is like some people who say we must help the poor; therefore, let us become poor ourselves.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. The resolution which Gandhi proposes amounts to an ultimatum to the Swarajists.

Disciple: Mahatmaji differentiates between “passive-resistance” and “Satyagraha”.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not see much in it. Passive resistance also is resorted to because one is convinced of the Truth — Satya — of one’s side.

Disciple: Mahatmaji’s definition differs: according to him Satyagraha is not merely a political weapon; and secondly, it conveys the idea of Truth with non-violence as its necessary corollary.

Sri Aurobindo: But passive resistance can be done in all the fields of life; he himself did it. Perhaps “passive-resistance” is a plain and unpretentious expression while “Satyagraha” is high-sounding. It conveys to others the idea that what one stands for is the Truth. Some may find an air of moral superiority in it.

Disciple: But about the spinning clause I know that even in the heyday of non-cooperation no one span. There is also a resolution that the provinces should carry out the orders of the A.I.C.C. I wonder why that is brought forward,

Disciple: But formerly he talked of Provincial Autonomy in the Congress organisation.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But now it does not suit him, then it was suitable. One accepts the Truth that suits one at the time. He may be wanting to keep the whole organisation in his hands.

Disciple: Formerly he said that if the Congress did not agree with him he would work separately.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That was suitable at that time. He is perfectly justified in imposing all conditions on his own organisation; but to do it on the Congress is hardly justifiable.

Disciple: The leaders, I believe, have a conspiracy for supplying the ten tolas of cotton spun.

There was talk about “Gopinath Saha” resolution in the Congress. The Forward came out with Dhingra’s statement

Disciple: Mahatmaji says that his faith in the programme is daily increasing. Only, the difficulty is that others seem to be losing faith in it in the same proportion.

Disciple: Khadi now has become a fashion, so much so that one can’t attend a public meeting without Khadi on his person.

Disciple: The logic is something like this: the capacity to depend upon ourselves in the matter of clothing would give us economic independence.

Sri Aurobindo: If all began to spin and weave there would be no time left to produce other things. We might have to import them from outside.

One should put on hand — spun and hand — woven cloth and the Charkha also may be used; there is absolutely no objection to these things. But everything taken out of its proper place becomes ridiculous.

Disciple: I was instructed to take a particular kind of bath as a treatment by Mahatmaji. He was against using medicine.

Disciple: What would happen in case of Appendicitis? A British surgeon, Medical science, etc. may be necessary.

Sri Aurobindo: It is surprising because he had declared that he was “unmoved”.

Disciple: The Swarajists had only to go to him and he seemed ready to climb down.

Sri Aurobindo: They probably went to him seeing the penalty

clause, and also to ascertain how far he would climb down.

Disciple: The last resolution — about litigants being allowed to appear in law-courts — was ruled out of order. But in actual practice all these resolutions are shelved.

Sri Aurobindo: You do, and can do, all these things as “practical” men; but how can you be a conscientious non-cooperator at the same time?

Disciple: Hanumanth Rao drew attention to the pleader’s plight and sought permission for them to continue legal practice.

There was talk about the resolution of the A.I.C.C. concerning litigants. The case of donation of Rs. 25,000/- came up also. He was not able to sell his bungalow and wants “somebody to buy it”. He had to defend himself in court. His two sons are light-fingered according to report.

Disciple: Then it is the age for stealing. I stole up to my fortieth year and even this morning I stole a chrysanthemum from the Telegraph Office garden. X wanted to pluck more flowers. But I hurried him away.

Disciple: What a situation! From planning political dacoities to pilfering flowers!

Sri Aurobindo: Why? It is not a fall. It is an ascent,— that was Rajasik, this is Sattwik. If you steal, you must do it in the proper way and in the right spirit.

Disciple: When I came out of the compound I was thinking that this was the only way to equalise property. Mr. A has one plant, now I will have one and so each of us will have one!

Disciple: I do not mind if someone stole from here; only, he must not tell me, because if he asks I won’t give. (laughter)

The subject was Gandhi’s article: “Defeated and humbled” — an article in which he bemoans the situation in the Congress and says that it was a clear victory for Mr. G.R. Das.

He could not restrain his tears, though he says it is hard to make him shed tears. He also says that the whole sitting was frivolous

Disciple: Even in the heyday of non-cooperation the A.I..C.C. people voted in the same fashion as they did now. Then they Voted for him; now they voted against him.

Disciple: That makes the whole difference: that makes it unreal and frivolous etc.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally, in such moments people do not speak; they keep it to themselves but he comes out

with it. It is all how it affected the “I” and how he felt and how it all touched him!

Disciple: He becomes so much identified with the work in hand that he can hardly have that detached self-view which is necessary to detect the central k mistake.

Sri Aurobindo: If the resolutions he has brought forward are defeated, or if a certain resolution is ruled out of order, there is no reason why he should feel hurt and that has nothing to do with the work for the country.

He objects to Dr. Choithram’s resolution and he is very much hurt at that shielding (Deshpande) resolution. About the Serajgunj resolution also Gandhi has felt much.

The Gujarat Provincial Congress Committee passed the compulsory spinning resolution with the penalty clause.

The talk turned first to the explanation given by a French scientist about the twinkling of stars. He says that the azote particles come across the atmosphere and that is why the planets being near do not twinkle, while the stars being far do.

Sri Aurobindo: You must ask them! When we were young we were told that the planets reflect the light of the Sun while the stars emit it and therefore they twinkle. (turning to a disciple) Did you read Motilal’s letter asking for contribution to his paper?

The Tarakeshwar affair was being settled. The first terms that were proposed did not meet with Sri Aurobindo’s

approval. But next day an open letter from Swami Vishwananda appeared agreeing with C.R. Das: The Mahant abdicates in favour of Prabhat Giri and the power of management of the temple rests with a committee that can, if necessary, dismiss the Mahant and the committee would appoint a separate Manager of estates.

Today (the 13th) Sri Aurobindo approved of these terms. If we have our own Government we could throw out the Mahant and settle the affair once for all; but under a foreign rule if Das can establish the authority of the committee legally, it would be the cleverest thing to do, so that in case of emergency the committee can enforce its mandate by law. As it is, the whole law is against the public.

After all Das is a man who “muddles through” — he acts on his intuitions and impulses and somehow muddles through a difficulty.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, impulses are vital intuitions. Not that he commits no mistakes. He goes on committing mistakes and tries to rectify them and somehow comes to “something”.

Sri Aurobindo: If not Swaraj, he may stumble into some way towards it. There are some people like Mustafa Kamal who never commit a mistake and everything about them is organised. Das is not that type.

Disciple: Kamal lords it over everyone and I am afraid that makes him unpopular.

Disciple: Even his lieutenants try to follow him in that respect and people find it difficult to get on with them.

Sri Aurobindo (after a time): That is perhaps inevitable when you require people who will take the extreme step.

Such men can hardly remain calm and yet be extremists. Few can be extremists while retaining their calmness.

Disciple: It contains at the end Gandhiji’s estimate of Christianity; he differs, he says, from orthodox Christianity. He believes in the symbolic interpretation of Christ, Mary and the Holy Ghost.

Disciple: He also believes that everyone must be crucified in order to attain Christhood; he would not, he says, put a limited interpretation on the “Sermon on the Mount”. But he finds Hinduism quite sufficient for his spiritual development. He has read the Upanishads and finds them very grand, but he cannot agree with some of their ideas, he finds them difficult to understand even.

Sri Aurobindo: All that could hardly prove that he is not a Christian in his make.

Disciple: He has written a long paragraph on the Mahabharata. He finds it a great poem, and he is especially charmed by the poet’s consistently working out the law of Karma (cause and effect). The mighty Krishna dies like — an — ordinary — man; the great Arjuna is robbed by the Kabas — his Gandiva, the famous bow, notwithstanding; and even Dharmaraja is made to feel the unpleasant odour of hell for having lowered the ideal of Truth.

Sri Aurobindo: What is there the cause and what is the effect? One man strikes the blow and the other dies, so one is the cause and the other is the effect!

Disciple: He has also read Goethe’s Faust and finds that

the heroine (Henrietta) could not find peace until she took to the spinning-wheel.

Sri Aurobindo: My God! (turning to a disciple) Do you know Mrs. Besant, Jaykar and Natarajan have decided to spin?

Disciple: It is a fine trio! I do not know how long their enthusiasm is going to last.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Instead of four annas you have to give two thousand yards per month.

Disciple: Have you not used the word “wheel” in your writings in the Arya? We may send the cutting to the Mahatma!

There was a report in the press about Mahatma Gandhi’s going to Cutch. He seemed to believe that he was approaching his death. There was a statement that he was going to Cutch to take rest and also to attend to the grievances of the Cutch people.

Disciple: His idea is that he would like to do “spiritual” work for the country.

Disciple: Nowadays “spiritual” is a word of which the meaning is known to very few people.

Sri Aurobindo: In ancient India they knew the meaning. But now obviously the Indians have got the European idea of spirituality. It is not a very deep idea. If you have strong emotion, or strong passion, or a particular type of thoughts — that is what they call spirituality. Or it is something bound up with ethics, morality and philanthrophy.

In Europe they use the word “spirit” in contrast to “matter”. Whatever is not matter is spirit; and so if any man has high mental ideals and an aesthetic turn of mind or some ideas of social service they call him “spiritual”.

Disciple: When I first came across the use of the word “femme spirituelle” in France during the first World War, I took it in the Indian sense and it was later on that I came to know that it only meant any “witty” or “vivacious” girl.

Sri Aurobindo: Because in French “esprit” means “mind”, “wit” and such other things.

Disciple: During the war a doctor — probably Dr. Lebon — of France took photographs of departed spirits and immediately after the war there was a mania in France for consulting “spiritualists”, to get messages from the departed souls.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is another definition of “spirituality”, or rather “spiritualism”, in Europe.

Disciple: The one thing they accept is the physical body and in France they have come to accept vital force or “living matter”.

Sri Aurobindo: The French find it difficult to go beyond the intellect. Other European nations are no better,, They are satisfied if they get a “proof”. Newman saw that evidence does not prove anything and that you

can prove what you want by using the same evidence. They can’t understand that the laws governing the planes behind the physical plane may be quite different from those that obtain here.

For instance, Oliver Lodge is a great scientist and he asserts that the voice which came to him was that of Raymond, his son, who had died in the war. He says that it is proved beyond doubt because it spoke in the way in which his son used to speak and recounted things which only Raymond knew and also spoke about certain family matters,

Now, if a voice, or a spirit, comes to you and says that it is so and so, it does not, in the least, mean that it is that man. Any spirit from that plane can come and figure as that man. Europeans can’t believe that a being on the subtle planes can have knowledge of things by means which are quite different from those we have to use. It can know many things. Not only that, it can catch hold of the “astral” body and the nervous form of the individual and figure before you. But that would not prove that it is that man. You can even take its photograph perhaps. But that is not the astral or the subtle body. It is the body just behind the physical that you see.

But Europeans are mere children in these things. They take the laws of this plane and try to apply them to the subtle planes. Col. Wedgewood, when he came here, could not understand anything when someone told him that I was doing “spiritual work”. He asked:

“What is spirituality?” But in spite of an explanation he could not understand what spirituality is. If Europeans had to pass through the experience of the stone-throwing incident which occured in 41 Rue Francois Martin, they would at Qnce take the incident as a proof of some spirit throwing it. In fact, it only proves that

“stones fell” and that “they were thrown by some agency without the use of physical means”. That is all you can say. It is a matter of experience; one has oneself to enter into these planes and find out the laws obtaining there. There are so many possibilities and you have yet to find out which is the fact in a particular case.

There was a reference to a letter of Lord Reading to the Nizam of Hyderabad in which he says: “No Indian State can deal with the British on terms of political equality and that the British was the Paramount power in India.”

Disciple: This time the Indian Government has been outspoken to the Indian princes probably because other princes also have begun to insist on the terms of their treaties being observed. The Gaekwad, for instance, asked back Kathiawad the other day. The Indian Government wants to prevent such a movement among the princes.

Sri Aurobindo: The Indian princes may be anything personally, but as a class they lack courage and political wisdom.

Disciple: Taraknath Das in his book points out that the Indian princes could help in the work of national regeneration. They could even take part in international politics.

Sri Aurobindo: Many things are desirable, but they do not always come true. No doubt, if the princes were politicians they could hasten the march of freedom to a very great extent. They could create real centres of power within their dominions which would serve when the time for revolution came. That was the idea in the

Gaekwar’s mind when he began but it was not carried through.

Disciple: There was a Praja Mandal which recently protested against the increase of taxes.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not mean that the Indian States must adopt parliamentary institutions, or even that India must copy them from Europe. You think that the opposition between the State and the popular party must always be there. That is the European idea. It is not necessary to have that kind of opposition at all.

Sri Aurobindo: There was; you need not have the same thing today. In India the communal freedom was very great. The communities had great powers and the State had no autocratic authority. The State was a kind of general supervising agency of all the communities. What these modern princes can do is to create great centres of life amongst their subjects, so that they may be the seats of real power and life of the nation. The princes need not take part as leaders; but they can help the growth of the nation.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they had; it is the European idea that makes you think that the parliamentary form or constitution is the best. We had great communal liberty and the communities were the centres of power and of national life. The king could not infringe the right of the commune.

Disciple: The communities must be strong and living enough not to allow their rights to be snatched away.

Sri Aurobindo: It was so; the king had a continuity of policy from father to son and he could not infringe the rights of the communes; and if these rights were interfered with the people at once made themselves felt.

That was the form which the genius of the race had evolved. You think that this parliamentary government is the best form of government. In fact, that form has been a success nowhere except in England. In France, it is worse, in America, in spite of their being an Anglo-Saxon race, it has not succeeded.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think so; in Italy and in South Europe the parliamentary form is there but they all copied the German constitution and there is no reality behind the form.

I don’t understand why everything should be centralised as in the parliamentary constitution. We must have different, numerous centres of culture and power, full of national life, spread all over the country and they must have political freedom to develop themselves.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But it is not by lectures and sermonising to the village people, as we are trying to do now.

Disciple: I have letters from a friend informing me that the organisation of co-operative societies has succeeded in Gujarat.

Sri Aurobindo: If you want to work in the village, you must take to a natural profession, go and settle down among the village people and be one of them. When they see that you are a practical man they will begin to trust you. If you go there and work hard for ten or fifteen years you will gain your status and you will be able to do something because they will be prepared to listen to you.

The parliamentary form would be hardly suitable for our people. Of course, it is not necessary that you should have today the same old forms. But you can take

the line of evolution and follow the bent of the genius of the race.

Sri Aurobindo: If you mean the politics of India today then there is absolutely no difference. It is a bad copy of Western politics, taking any catch-words, often even without any reference to realities. For instance, you introduce parliamentarian liberalism or the labour movement because Europe has got them. But there it is very real while here it is merely an idea and a name. Parliamentarianism is based upon educating public opinion and there the agitation has a direct bearing on their government and they have got to do it to take the masses with them at the polls. In India while we take up this form of agitation, of making a big noise, we forget that they have their government while here it is not ours and therefore the agitation is futile.

Now, in Europe people believe and think that if they succeed in bringing about a definite form of Government on the lines of certain ideals such as Democracy, Monarchy, Socialism, Communism etc, then all the problems of humanity will be solved. They follow a mental ideal which they think to be the only truth and they create public opinion and try to catch, or get hold of, the machinery of the State.

Among all the conflicting ideals none has yet proved successful. It was thought that democracy

would be the most successful form but after experience it is proved that it is far from being a success.

Next comes the interest of individuals and classes. It is really the interest which gets the better of the mental ideal and succeeds in getting hold of the machinery of the State, i.e., power.

In the beginning it was the priest and the monarch with his aristocracy who ruled. Then the aristocracy, the fighting class, with the common man under it, and then came the middle class, the merchant class, which is now having the machinery of power under what is called Democracy. And now there is the effort in countries like Russia where the proletariat are trying to rule.

Now for Machinery of the State. It is rigid and hard centralisation and mechanization of the life of the nation perfectly organised in all details to meet an aggression, to defend and to expand.

In the old Indian collective life the three Indian things were: (1) spontaneously growing free communal units; (2) the Dharma-idea; (3) harmonising of national life by a central agency. In India we had nothing of the mental ideal in politics. We had a spontaneous and a free growth of communities developing on their own lines. It was not so much a mental idea as an inner impulse or feeling, to express life in a particular form. Each such communal form of life — the village, the town, etc, which formed the unit of national life, was left free in its own internal management. The central authority never interfered with it.

There was not the idea of “interest” in India as in Europe, i.e., each community was not fighting for its own interest; but there was the idea of Dharma, the function which the individual and the community has to fulfil in the larger national life, There, were

caste organisations not based upon a religio-social basis as we find nowadays; they were more or less groups organised for a communal life. There were also religious communities like the Buddhists, the Jains, etc. Each followed its own law — Swadharma — unhampered by the State. The State recognised the necessity of allowing such various forms of life to develop freely in order to give to the national spirit a richer expression.

Then over the two there was the central authority, whose function was not so much to legislate as to harmonise and see that everything was going on all right. It was administered by a Raja in cases, also, an elected head of the clan, as in the instance of Gautama Buddha. Each ruled over either a small State or a group of small States or republics. One was not at the head to put his hand over all organisations and keep them down. If he interfered with them he was deposed because each of these organisations had its own laws which had been established for long ages.

The machinery of the State also was not so mechanical as in the West — it was plastic and elastic.

This organisation we find in history perfected in the reign of Ghandragupta and the Maurya dynasty. The period preceding this must have been a period o| great political development in India. Every department of national life, we can see, was in charge of a board or a committee with a minister at the head and each board looked after what we now would call its own department and was left free from undue interference of the Central authority. The change of kings left these boards untouched and unaffected in their work. An organisation similar to that was found in the Town and in the Village and it was this organisation that was taken up by the Madans when they came and it is that which the English also have taken up. The idea

of the King as the absolute monarch was never an Indian idea. It was brought from Central Asia by the Madans.

The English in accepting this system have disfigured it considerably. They have found ways to put their hand on and grasp all the old organisations, using them merely as channels to establish more thoroughly the authority of the Central Power. They discouraged every free organisation and every attempt at the manifestation of the free life of the community. Now attempts are being made to have the Co-operative Societies in villages, there is an effort at, reviving the Panchayats. But these organisations cannot be revived once they have been crushed and even if they revived they would not be the same.

If the old organisation had lasted it would have been a successful rival of the modern form of government.

Sri Aurobindo: You need not come back to the old forms but you can retain the spirit which might create its own new forms.

They could not last, firstly, because there was the flagging of national energy owing to various causes. Secondly, the country was too vast and the means of communication not efficient enough to permit all national forces being concentrated on a particular point. Chandragupta could not have very easily reached the farthest end of his dominion so as to put all available national strength to a single purpose. If India had been a small country it would have been much more easy and with the modern means of communication I am sure it would have succeeded.

It has been a special feature of India that, she

has to contain in her life all the most diverse elements and assimilate them. This renders her problem most intricate.

Disciple: If it is India’s destiny to assimilate all the conflicting elements, is it possible to assimilate the Madan element also?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? India has assimilated elements from the Greeks, the Persians and other nations. But she assimilates only when her Central Truth is recognised by the other party, and even while assimilating she does it in such a way that the elements absorbed are no longer recognisable as foreign but become part of herself. For instance, we took from the Greek architecture, from the Persian painting etc.

The assimilation of the Madan culture also was done in the mind to a great extent and it would have perhaps gone further. But in order that the process may be complete it is necessary that a change in the Madan mentality should come. The conflict is in the outer life and unless the Madans learn tolerance I do not think the assimilation is possible.

The Hindu is ready to tolerate. He is open to new ideas and his culture has got a wonderful capacity for assimilation, but always provided that her Central Truth is recognised.

Sri Aurobindo: The “Nation” idea India never had. By that I mean the political idea of the nation. It is a modern growth. But we had in India the cultural and spiritual idea of the nation.

Disciple: Is it possible to continue the modern idea of the nation with the spontaneously growing institutions of the old times?

Sri Aurobindo: The modern political consciousness of the

national idea has come to Europe recently. It arose either by a slow growth as in England and Japan on account of their insular position more or less, or in response to outside pressure as with the French who got it after their conquest by the Britons. Practically, the French began to be a nation after the appearance of Joan of Arc. Up to that time England found always some allies among the French nobles. Italy got it not more than a century ago, and the Germans as late as the time of Bismarck.

This consciousness is more political than anything else and it aims at the organisation of the national forces for offence and defence. If you accept the ideal of nations going on fighting and destroying for ever, then you have to give up the cultural and spiritual free growth of the nation and follow in the footsteps of European nations.

Disciple: In America — U.S.A. — each state makes its own laws — there the central authority is not oppressive.

Disciple: But the State legislates about everything. America, in fact, is a country of laws and regulations and not free growth.

Sri Aurobindo: The present-day national spirit and the centralised mechanical organisation of the State are logical conclusions or consequences of “nations” — of “armed nations”; you feel more and more justified in centralising everything once you have begun.

But there is no reason to suppose that the present-day ideal of nationhood which is only aggressive and defensive would last for ever. If this state of affairs is to last for ever then you can give up all hope for humanity. Only a cataclysm, in that case, can save humanity.

Disciple: If the spirit of nationalism is given up by the European nations, what will they follow?

Sri Aurobindo: Do you want me to prophesy? But the

modern tendency seems: to be towards some kind of internationalism.

Disciple: What do you think of Tagore’s idea of India becoming the meeting-ground of the West and the East?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by the meeting of the West and the East? You mean like the meeting of the tiger and the lamb?

Disciple: Why meet in India? We can meet in London, as their brother! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: We in India take time to assimilate and put into life this new national idea of the West. Other Asiatic nations like the Japanese and the Turks have been able to catch it. There is a great difference between the Indian and the Japanese mind. The Japanese have got the mental discipline and capacity to organise. We in India have not that sort of ordered and practical mind. In Japan everyone lives for the Mikado and the Mikado is the symbol of the nation — he embodies the spirit of the nation. Everyone is prepared to die for him. This we could never have in India; Japan was more feudal in its past than any other Asiatic nation.

Disciple: Is there no similarity between the political institutions of the Middle Ages and the organisations of Chandragupta in India?

Sri Aurobindo: There is only a superficial resemblance.; We had no feudalism as it was practised in Europe.

Disciple: The laws of Manu — do they represent the ancient penal code of the past?

Sri Aurobindo: Manusmriti is a compilation made by the Brahmins and it is not very old. It was, I believe, somewhere about the first century that the laws were compiled. They must be embodying, of course, the former laws. There were punishments in those days, fines, corporal punishments, mutilation and even capital punishment.

Disciple: If we had all these things, why have we Indians come to our present condition?

Sri Aurobindo: Present-day Indians have got nothing to boast of from their past. Indian culture today is in the most abject condition, like the fort of Jinji — one pillar standing here, and another ceiling there and some hall out of recognition somewhere!

Disciple: The word “Dharma” has come to mean “religion”, though the original sense is not that. It is the law of being — social or moral — which sustains the being. Is the old classification of men in four orders, according to the peculiar Dharma of each, tenable now? Can each human being have the characteristics of the four orders?

Sri Aurobindo: There is infinite possibility. So the potentiality of all the four castes is in every man, but that does not exist as a fact. No classification can be perfect so long as man is living in the mental consciousness. It is not possible to classify all natures into four orders. So we have come to the present confusion because it is regulated by birth. Of course, there are tradition, training, culture and atmosphere which tend to give the stamp of nature.

But then the economic classification set aside the one according to inherent inborn nature. Profession then became the mark of the caste. Now, even this has broken down — what continues as caste is meaningless. Many meaningless things continue in humanity.

Before Buddha there were Kshatriyas in Bengal. When Buddhism collapsed there remained two castes — Brahmins and Shudras — other castes rightly resented being called “Shudras”. In old times the agriculturist, the trader and the craftsmen were all Vaishyas.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. In the democratic ideal all are inherently equal. Now they say we must give equal opportunity to all — that is possible; there was a hierarchy in India and in Feudal Europe.

But where is democracy even today? It is a name which simply covers up the inequalities. All human ideals move round in a vicious circle. First, a hierarchy starts the culture — the start, generally, is with knowledge and spiritual experience. Then the culture spreads down to the people and in so doing it depreciates. Then a general levelling down takes place and there comes democracy. Then a hierarchy comes in and the circle starts again.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is a goal, and humanity is not going towards it but round and round in a circle below, while the goal is high up.

Sri Aurobindo: To escape he must go beyond humanity. In the case of individuals attempts up till now have succeeded. But no effort has succeeded in making it a part of the earth-nature.

Sri Aurobindo: About that you can say as much as I. that do you mean by industrialism?

Sri Aurobindo: Big machines are bound to come. The poverty of the people can only be removed by large-scale production.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a different question. But big machinery does not necessarily imply all the evils of industrialism.

Sri Aurobindo: Why should the present form of social life remain intact? New forms of social organisation will rise with the advent of large-scale production. It is the tendency of Indians towards poverty which is really responsible for their cry against machinery.

Disciple: The problem is: how to introduce big machinery and yet avoid all the evils arising out of it?

Sri Aurobindo: The evils are bound to disappear. The different ideas and schemes suggested in Europe show that people are trying to correct the defects. Unless one enters into industrialism how can the evils be overcome?

Sri Aurobindo: But why should India wait till other countries

solve the problem, so that it may imitate them afterwards?

Sri Aurobindo: Let her first acquire wealth. Without wealth they cannot expect to make any progress.

Disciple: There are some followers of the school of non-violence in Indian politics who want to prove that the Gita preaches non-violence. They depend on the Mahatma’s interpretation of the Gita.

Sri Aurobindo: Non-violence is not in the Gita. If, as some people, including — the Mahatma, say, the Gita signifies a spiritual war or battle only, then what of Apariharyerthe and Hanyamane same — “inevitable circumstance” and “body being killed”? What of the Shoka — the sorrow — for those who are dead? To me such a reading seems the result of a defect in their mental attitude. They have not got the intellectual rectitude which can wait and calmly grasp the truth. Besides, there is no question of crying over dead sins if the Kaurawas only symbolise the “sins” — and these people may be sure! that the sins killed by Arjuna have not been really dead.

Disciple: Sometimes we had discussions about Ahimsa — non-violence and I pointed out the sixth chapter of the Essays on the Gita to my friends of the Sabarmati Ashram

at Ahmedabad and I found they could not reply to it.

Sri Aurobindo: I am not sure, but the Mahatma’s son — Devadas — who came here sent it to the Mahatma who said he was unable to reply to it intellectually. Perhaps he could not make up his mind to accept the principle that an evil cannot be destroyed unless much that lives by the evil is destroyed.

They could not grasp the argument that the spiritual power of Vashishta was responsible for the destruction. The original story is that the Cow,— Kamdhenu,— did not want to go to Vishwamitra. Vishwamitra wanted to take it by force. But Vashishta refused to resist. So the Cow asked him to allow her to resist Vishwamitra. Vashishta said: “You can do whatever you like.” She called upon the psychical powers to resist and the Asuras came on account of the spiritual power of Vashishta. Because one saves himself from the act of killing, his responsibility is not less on that account. The question is whether one resists or not. If one resists it may be by physical force or soul force — that is quite another matter.

Disciple: Did you read Malavia’s speech about the Multan riots and also what C. Rajgopalachari has said?

Sri Aurobindo: I am sorry they are making a fetish of this Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus may have to fight the Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of the Hindus. Every time the mildness of the Hindu has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and the Hindu-Muslim unity would take care of itself, it would automatically solve the problem. Otherwise, we are lulled into a false sense of satisfaction that we have solved a difficult problem, when in fact we have only shelved it.

Disciple: We had a funny argument about language the other day in course of which Upen Banerji said that Sanskrit was derived from Bengali! (laughter)

Disciple: He could not have seriously meant it. He must have meant it as a joke! Probably he wanted to impress all — particularly the non — Bengalis. But the strange thing is that some one has recently made an effort to prove that Sanskrit is derived from Tamil! (laughter)

Disciple: Everyone can say something absurd because no one is there to put in a word for Sanskrit.

Sri Aurobindo: (turning to a disciple) Why don’t you try to prove that Sanskrit was derived from Gujarati?

Disciple: Yes, my friend always puts forth the fact that Krishna lived in Gujarat.

Disciple: The Mahatma believes that non-violence purifies the man who practises it.

Sri Aurobindo: I believe Gandhi does not know what actually happens to the man’s nature when he takes to Satyagraha or non-violence. He thinks that men get purified by it. But when men suffer, or subject them — selves to voluntarily suffering, what happens is that their vital being gets strengthened. These movements affect the vital being only and not any other part. Now, when you cannot oppose the force that oppresses, you say that you will suffer. That suffering is vital and it gives strength. When the man who has thus suffered gets power he becomes a worse oppressor. That is what I have written in the Essays on the Gita that when a nation gets freedom by the suffering of its leaders and other

men, it oppresses other nations in its turn. It is almost always the case with those who suppress their vital being. It allows the pressure on itself, gets strong and then finds vent in some other direction. The same thing happened to the Puritans in England. Cromwell and his men came to power and became the worst oppressors. In Christianity the principle of non violence is there but it is meant to be practised for religious and spiritual development. It may be partial but it can certainly develop certain types of spiritual temperaments. What one can do is to transform the spirit of violence. But in this practice of Satyagraha it is not transformed. When you insist on such a one-sided principle what happens is that cant, hypocrisy and dishonesty get in and there is no purification at all. Purification can come by the transformation of the impulse of violence, as I said. In that respect the old system in India was much better. The man who had the fighting spirit became the Kshatriya and then the fighting spirit was raised above the ordinary vital influence. The attempt was to spiritualise it. It succeeded in doing what passive resistance cannot and will not achieve. The Kshatriya was the man who would not allow any oppression, who would fight it out and he was the man who would not oppress anybody. That was the ideal.

Disciple: Those who take to non-violence as a religion can not intellectually conceive the possibility of transforming the spirit of violence.

Disciple: There is also the question of Hindu-Muslim unity which the non-violence school is trying to solve on the basis of their theory.

Sri Aurobindo: You can live amicably with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live

peacefully with a religion whose principle is “I will not tolerate you”? How are you going to have unity with these people? Certainly, Hindu-Muslim unity cannot be arrived at on the basis that the Muslims will go on converting Hindus while the Hindus shall not convert any Madan.

Disciple: There was only recently the boycott of a drama in Andhra because some Hindu in the show was represented as marrying a Muslim lady!

Sri Aurobindo: You can’t build unity on such a basis. Perhaps, the only way of making the Madans harmless is to make them lose their fanatic faith in their religion.

Sri Aurobindo: Not by the kind of education they receive at Aligarh but by a more liberalising education. The Turks, for instance, are not fanatical because they have more liberal ideas. Even when they fight it is not so much for Islam as or right and liberty.

It was the Madans and the Christians who began the religious wars — i.e., fighting for religion. First the Jews began persecuting and then the Christians when they began to disagree among themselves began to persecute also.

Disciple: The Madan religion was born under such circumstances that the followers never forgot the origin.

Sri Aurobindo: That was the result of the passive-resistance which they practised. They went on suffering till they got strong enough and, when they got power, they began to persecute others with a vengeance.

The Roman government persecuted the Christians and the Christians suffered. When the Christians came to power they started inquisitions and they always said that the institutions like the inquisition were very good for the souls of those people. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but when you become non-violent why do you allow another to exercise violence on you?

Disciple: But his position is that he does not care to remove violence from others; he wants to observe non-violence himself.

Sri Aurobindo: That is one of the violences of the Satyagrahi that he does not care for the pressure which he brings on others. It is not non-violence — it is not “Ahimsa”. True Ahimsa is a state of mind and does not consist in physical or external action or in avoidance of action. Any pressure in the inner being is a breach of Ahimsa.

For instance, when Gandhi fasted in the Ahmedabad mill-hands’ strike to settle the question between mill-owners and workers, there was a kind of violence towards others. The mill-owners did not want to be responsible for his death and so they gave way, without, of course, being convinced of his position. It is a kind of violence on them. But as soon as they found the situation normal they reverted to their old ideas. The same thing happened in South Africa. He got some concessions there by passive resistance and when he came back to India it became worse than before.

Sri Aurobindo: Really speaking it is a kind of moral force or, if you like, will-force that is ethical in its nature. You can say that in a certain sense all force is ultimately soul-force. But real soul-force is something different,

Disciple: But the Mahatma says that Prahlad used soul-force and he derives his Satyagraha from him.

Sri Aurobindo: First of all, Prahlad was young. Then, his father was the king. There was the natural love for the father — very strong at that time in the society. But you must also remember that the whole thing resulted in tearing out the entrails of his father. (Laughter)

Disciple: Sri Krishna and Arjuna can serve as examples of men who resorted to what the Mahatma calls “violence”.

Disciple: I had a long discussion with X on vegetarian and non-vegetarian diet. His argument was that those who take non-vegetarian diet are people devoid of pity. Life is sacred and no one, who has not realized the Spirit in all forms of life, has the right to take meat.

My reply was: Many Madans and Christians who take non-vegetarian diet are not devoid of pity. Christ himself was not a vegetarian; — diet has little to do with pity or cruelty. Secondly, the Jains who are proverbially vegetarians are not less cruel. Your argument that vegetables being lower forms of life can be eaten but animals being higher forms should not be eaten is based upon an arbitrary assumption about the higher and the lower forms of life. It is a creation of human mind. All life is life.

Sri Aurobindo: It is absurd to make food such an important thing in the spiritual life. It is a secondary matter whether one takes vegetarian or non-vegetarian diet, so far as the spiritual life is concerned. The real thing is equality or

Samata. If that is there then it is immaterial whether one takes fish or vegetarian diet. Philosophically, it is meaningless to say this has more life and that has less.

Sri Aurobindo: Not life but mind. Life is more manifest in the plant, in some respects, than even in man. Only, the mind is not evolved.

Disciple: The question is of vital repulsion. One can say he feels repulsion in killing an animal or he feels the animal nearer to him. But that would not prove that the plant when killed suffers less. It is only because man is not able to see the suffering of the plant that he feels the repulsion less, perhaps. All these things are due to Samskaras — previous, impressions. The plain fact is that one cannot live unless he takes some kind of life. All these arguments are only intellect trying to justify old Samskaras.

Disciple: You spoke of equality, Samata. Why should one establish equality in the Prana, the vital, before one does it in the mind?

Sri Aurobindo: Why should he not, if he can? It is not that one has to wait and establish equality on all planes at once, at a time.

Disciple: Is it necessary to wait till the yoga is perfect in order to take fish?

Sri Aurobindo: I do not understand why one should. Very few people realise the true meaning of Samata, equality. By Samata, equality, is meant a certain attitude of the whole being towards the world and its happenings. This world is full of so many things which are horrible and terrible. Samata means that one should be able to look at them from a certain poise without being perplexed or moved. It does not mean that one will

go on killing others indiscriminately or out of a personal motive. That would be untruth. But it means that one must be able to look at things without being moved. What X calls “pity” is something quite different from “compassion” and both are different from Samata — equality. Samata is an attitude of the whole being. Pity and sentimentalism are results of nervous repulsion, some movement in the vital being. I myself, when I was young, could not read anything related to cruelty without feeling that repulsion and a feeling of hatred for those who practised it. I could not kill an insect, say, a bug or a mosquito. This was not because I believed in Ahimsa but because I had nervous repulsion. Later, even when I had no mental objection, I could not harm anything because the body rejected the act. When I was in jail I was subjected to all sorts of mental tortures for the first fifteen days. I had to look upon scenes of all kinds of suffering and then the nervous repulsion passed away.

Compassion is something different. It comes from Above. It is a state of sympathy for the suffering of man and the suffering that is on earth and there is an idea of helping it as far as one can, whenever one can in his own way. It is not like pity. It is like the Gods who look upon human suffering from above, unmoved. That compassion can also destroy and it destroys with compassion,— Daya,— as Durga does the Rakshasas, the hostile beings. There can be no pity there. Many times the Rakshasa may come and ask you to save him, he may even ask you to transform him — as some beings asked the Mother in her vision — by your spiritual power. If you try that, all the power goes to the Rakshasa and you may become powerless. When these vital beings incarnate in men then the compassion would not prevent you from killing them.

That the vegetable kingdom has got life is not something new to know and it is not necessary to acquire Samata to take fish. I used to take it when I was a child and when I had no Samata. What is required is: one should have no repulsion. As a matter of fact, I cannot take fish nowadays, but that means nothing. I give it to the cats all right.

When there is Samata then there comes Samarasatva — equal enjoyment — from everything — one gets the rasa, essential delight, from every kind of food. Even the food that we call badly cooked has a rasa of its own. But one can agree to a little bit of diplomacy. It is no use casting fish in the face of a Jain or forcing Smoke in the face of an orthodox Tamil Brahmin.

Disciple: Did you read in the papers that Mahatmaji is thinking of retiring to his Ashram and there playing with children?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It may be a correct intuition. But I cannot understand how his argument about Khaddar bringing Swaraj holds. He says that if he can universalize Khaddar he can also make all who use it resort to civil disobedience. I do not quite see how it follows; for, putting on Khaddar is harmless — except for the inconvenience in summer perhaps — but civil disobedience is not harmless. One who puts on Khaddar may not join civil disobedience.

Disciple: He has advised moderation in Vakyam Satyagraha perhaps because he feels humble.

Sri Aurobindo: But that kind of moderate tinge is not good. Humility in a leader like that is not always a great

virtue. At any rate humility of this sort. It is one thing to know that you are the instrument of Fate or of some power, or of God. But you must know that you are there to lead and that people must do what you say.

I am afraid, the difficulty with him is that his vital being drags him into all sorts of activities and he begins to say: “You must do this, you must not do that,” Then his mind — the mental being — comes in and says: “You may do what you like. I am nothing, you are free to do what you like.” This kind of double movement renders the activity ineffective. If he had only worked with his vital drive, he could have achieved many things.

Disciple: If he restricts his work to the Ashram, even then “support of friends” would be necessary, as he says. It was with great difficulty, I learn, that the Wardha Ashram was able to make two ends meet. And the inmates could hardly get time for anything else.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I have heard about it and seen it. These European writers and thinkers I have found airy, wandering in their thought. I found another error in his book which is common to all European thinkers: it is about the Indian Spirit.

He traces the influence from Buddha and Mahavira to Gandhi; and for the Europeans that is the whole of the Indian Spirit!

Disciple: I believe Tagore is partly responsible — for that, as it is he who many times has insisted on the gospel of Buddha — whatever that may be, for various people have different ideas about it — as the only way for the salvation of humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: I think partly at least it is Tagore who has

made the idea current on the continent that Buddha is the beginning and the end of the Indian Spirit. Formerly, Rolland never thought about Asia; he was busy with his European unity and European culture etc.

Romain Rolland does not appear to be such a great intellect as he is reputed to be. He is a very good writer, no doubt. But the ideas are not much above ordinary, average ideas.

Disciple: Did you see the papers today? Mahatmaji proposes to move a resolution against the boycott of empire goods.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the line of argument is strangely inconsistent: in one breath it is “impossible and unethical”! and then “useless and against non-cooperation”. The argument is: you can’t do without British books and medicines and so you can’t do without anything British! He forgets that British trade does not depend on books and medicines only. Then, again, he says that European firms and the Government will go on buying British goods and thus the Boycott is futile. So, if some men go on ordering foreign goods, you must also order foreign goods! Very strange!

Elections to the French Chamber of Deputies are going on. Mons. Valiant of Karikal saw Sri Aurobindo in connection with the elections. Certain instructions and advice were given to him.

The Tarakeshwar temple Satyagraha came for discussion. Sri Aurobindo seemed anxious to know the details.

The report was that Abhayanand was Mahant’s man and hirelings had been engaged to beat the volunteers of Swami Satchidananda and Vishwananda. Satchidananda was saved from being killed by the Gurkha, the keeper of a Marwari-Dharamsala.

Sri Aurobindo was not only interested but anxious that the fight must go through to success.

Mahatmaji’s silent day and the conclusion of his talk with the Swarajists came up. He wants the Swarajists to take up the constructive programme in the councils — e.g., Khaddar and prohibition; in case of failure in getting them through, to resort to civil disobedience.

Disciple: He also spoke at Bombay on the Anniversary of Gautama Buddha and said Buddhism was not given sufficient trial.

Sri Aurobindo: Christianity and Buddhism, I am afraid, will ever remain without being given a trial. They make such a demand on human nature that it cannot be fulfilled so long as man is what he is.

Disciple: I get puzzled by Mahatmaji’s logic, or shall I say? by his want of logic. At one time he says: “You must not fast against your enemy because by that you do violence to him. But you can fast when you have a grievance, or a cause, against your father.”

Then in the Vakyam Satyagraha when the people began to fast he says: “Why do you fast? The king is your father, why do you injure his feelings?”

Sri Aurobindo: I have no quarrel with what he says, so long as he says: “Do this” or “Do that”. That is quite all right; but why does he give reasons?

Sri Aurobindo: I did not go through the whole thing — it was very long — but there is compromise about non-violence which he says one can give up in the case of robbers, looters and foreign invasion. He is also wonder-struck that his interpretation of the Gita is seriously questioned by a Shastri. I am rather wonder-struck at his claim to an infallible interpretation of the Gita.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he has criticised Dayananda Saraswati who has, according to him, abolished image-worship and set up the idolatory of the Vedas. He forgets, I am afraid, that he is doing the same in economics by his Charkha and Khaddar, and, if one may add, by his idolatry of non-violence in religion and philosophy.

In that way every one has established idol-worship. He has criticised the Arya Samaj but why not criticise Madanism? His statement is adulatory of the Koran and of Christianity which is idolatry of the Bible, Christ and the Gross. Man is hardly able to do without externals and only a few will go to the kernel.

About conversion also you “do not merely change compartments”, as he says, but you change the environment. All are not going to practise the central core of spirituality. Very few can do that, but from the externals some can come to the internal.

Disciple: There is also the proposal to meet the Madans with bare breast and with smile on the face!

Disciple: Can one practise the Supramental yoga while remaining in the ordinary life?

Sri Aurobindo: It is true that the Supramental yoga accepts life but that does not mean life as it is at present, because the Supramental wants perfection and at present life is not perfect. Many fields of life are at present dominated by Ignorance. We want to change the whole mould of life. We want to gain the Supramental state in human evolution as the next higher step from the Mind. Now that there are signs of its coming we must try to bring it down into the physical being. It is comparatively easy to ascend to the Supermind. But, then, those who go up generally go away from life.

Humanity is the only field of manifestation and all gains must be brought to that plane: that is, to the plane of the ordinary consciousness. In order to do that, the Truth and nothing else must be demanded, otherwise one gets something mental, emotional or vital and is satisfied with it. Till now, humanity has only got glimpses of the Truth — but not the Truth itself. Every spiritual movement has tended to the same and has helped the realisation of it to a certain extent. The Vaishnavite religion wanted to bring the Truth into the

vital and the aesthetic being but it remained satisfied with it. The Vaishnavites indulged themselves, you may say, spiritually. The austerity of the effort was also lost. The Vedic Rishis had the conception of the Truth but under those conditions it could not be brought down for humanity. The Upanishads have got the idea but it is only a statement of it and there is no idea of bringing down the Truth. Mainly, theirs is the working of the intuitive mentality. Then came the intellectual philosophies — which were only intellectual — and the Puranas followed.

If the Supramental is brought to the physical then it might tend to endure, because Matter, though limited, is the one thing certain on this plane. If a number of men can reach this condition, then in course of time it may become a permanent force in mankind. It would certainly bring new forces into play in the universe and change the present balance of universal forces.

There may be many things beyond the Supermind but they cannot operate in this manifestation except through the Supermind. Therefore it must be made a permanent part of humanity.

Disciple: Yesterday we had a talk about Sj. Lele and his Gurubhai — co-Disciple — Narayan Swami, and I told you that I came to know that they follow — I do not know how far it is true, though — the Dattatraya yoga. I wonder what that yoga is like.

Sri Aurobindo: I was thinking about it after the talk. You know there is, perhaps, a traditional method of yoga

in the Maharashtra which belongs to the Dattatraya Cult. The truth behind it is that Dattatraya represents the highest realisation — he always keeps his consciousness immersed in the Infinite and the freedom of the Infinite is brought down by him to the mental, vital and even to the physical plane. Therefore a man who is a Siddha of the path acts free like the Infinite even in his Prakriti, nature,— and therefore often acts in a way which is considered immoral by society. He tries, thus, to bring down the power of the free Infinite into the instruments of manifestation and this he considers perfection. But it is doubtful whether it is perfection.

The danger of the realisation of the Infinite, free from all bondage, is that except in the highest condition, many false experiences can also masquerade as true. For instance, such a man gets tremendous power and generally has an ego-centric nature. Even Ravana was a great yogi. One having a great control over the vital plane only is generally known as a Rakshasa, The Asura controls his mind and his vital being. There is a great possibility of committing a blunder in the Dattatraya path.

Disciple: In the Avadhuta Gita, attributed to Datta, great stress is laid on vairagya, renunciation of the world. It teaches the abandonment of the world and nature.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but that does not seem to be the whole of Datta-marga — the yoga of Dattatraya. It seems only one side of it. There is the other side — the side that accepts every determination of the Infinite free from all relations — or relativities. There is unbridled pleasure or enjoyment on the one hand, there is renunciation of pleasure on the other.

Sri Aurobindo: Lele also told me that he saw Dattatraya at

Girnar and talked to him in the form of a boy for one hour.

Sri Aurobindo: I did not begin with Lele. I first began on my own with prāṇāyāma, drawing the breath into my head. This gave me good health, lightness and an increased power of thinking. Side by side certain experiences also came. But not many nor important ones. I began to see things in the subtle.

Then I had to give it up when I took to politics. I wanted to resume my yoga but did not know how to begin again. I wanted spiritual experience and political action together. I would not take up a method that required me to give up action and life.

When I came to Baroda from the Surat Congress, Barin had written to me that he knew a certain yogi to whom he would introduce me at Baroda. Barin sent a wire to Leie from Baroda and he came. At that time I was staying at Khasirao Jadhava’s house. We went to Sardar Majumdar’s place. On the top floor in a room we were shut up for three days. He asked me to do nothing but throw away all thoughts that came to my mind. In three days I did it. We sat in meditation together, I realised the Silent Brahman Consciousness. I began to think from above the brain and have done so ever since. Sometimes at night the Power would come and I would receive it and also the thoughts it brought and in the morning I would put down the whole thing word by word on paper.

In that very silence, in that thought-free condition, we went to Bombay. There I had to give a lecture at the National Union. So, I asked him what I should do. He asked me to pray. But I was absorbed in the silent Brahman and so I told him I was not in a mood

to pray. Then he said he and some others would pray and I should simply go to the meeting and make namaskār — a bow — to the audience as Narayana, the all-pervading Divine, and then a voice would speak through me. I did exactly as he told me. On my way to the meeting somebody gave me a paper to read. There was some headline there which caught my eye and left an impression. When I rose to address the meeting the idea flashed across my mind and then all of a sudden something spoke out. That was my second experience from Leie. It also shows that he had the power to give yogic experience to others.

When I was in Bombay, from the balcony of a friend’s house, I saw the whole busy movements of Bombay city as a picture in a cinema show — all unreal, shadowy. That was a Vedantic experience. Ever since I have maintained that peace of mind, never losing it even in the midst of difficulties. All the speeches that I delivered on my way to Calcutta from Bombay were of the same nature — with some mixture of mental work in some parts. Before parting I told Leie: “Now that we shall not be together I should like you to give me instructions about Sadhana.” In the meantime I told him of a Mantra that had arisen in my heart. He was giving me instructions when he suddenly stopped and asked me if I could rely absolutely on Him who had given me the Mantra. I said I could always do it. Then Lele said there was no need of instructions. We had then no talk till we reached our destination. Some months later, he came to Calcutta. He asked me if I meditated in the morning and in the evening. I said, “No.” Then he thought that some devil had taken possession of me and he began to give me instructions. I did not insult him but I did not act upon his advice. I had received the command

from within that a human Guru was not necessary for me. As to dhyāna — meditation — I was not prepared to tell him that I was practically meditating the whole day.:

All that wrote in the Bande Mataram and in the Karmayogin was from that state. I have since trusted the inner guidance even when I thought it was leading me astray. The Arya and the subsequent writings did not come from the brain. It was, of course, the same Power working. Now I do not use that method. I developed it to perfection and then abandoned it.

Sri Aurobindo (to a disciple): Really speaking two things matter: one, the Spirit that is dynamic above and the other the Life here which is the field of expression of the Spirit. Mind, emotion and other psychological activities are only intermediate terms. Mind is more or less a channel and so is heart. The body is merely the mould.

Two things are necessary in this yoga: balance and a strong hold on the earth. By balance I mean the different parts of the being adjusted to one another, or some steadiness, a quiet poise somewhere in the man,— not an unsteady inner condition.

A strong mental being is also very necessary. Otherwise, when the experiences come the man turns upside down. In India, our mental development — I mean the outer man’s development — is not at all proportionate. There is the psychic being ready in many

cases, there is the aspiration for spiritual life and faith also. But mind, reason, intelligence — the dynamic mind — are very crude. That is why I hesitate sometimes to give the yoga.

In Europe the outer parts are very well developed — reason, expression, the dynamic mind etc. But then there the whole thing ends. There is a great poverty in the inner being. Some of the Europeans are, really, babies in spiritual life. To combine the inner development with the outer would be ideal. Science, for instance, steadies reason and gives a firm grounding to the physical mind. Art — I mean the appreciation of beauty pure and simple, without the sensual grasping at the object — trains up the aesthetic side of the mind. The true artist has always the pure love of beauty — free and impersonal. Philosophy cultivates the pure thinking power. And politics and such other departments of mental work train up the dynamic mind. All these should be duly trained with the full knowledge that they have their limited utility. Philosophy tends to become mere mental gymnastics and preference for one’s own ideas and mental constructions. So also Reason becomes the tyrant and denies anything further. But if the training is given to these parts with an understanding of their limitations then they may serve very usefully the object of this yoga. As I say, they must all admit a higher working in them.

Sri Aurobindo: It is no use hurrying about psychic experiences and realisations. One must prepare the physical mind, the intelligence by common knowledge as well as knowledge pertaining to yoga. One must understand

what comes to him. Sometimes one does not even know what has come to him. One must also pay attention to śuddhi — purification, by introspection, by Karma yoga and by Bhakti, devotion. Then a step forward can be taken.

Sri Aurobindo: It only means that the readiness was already there and the Guru’s help removes the obstacle and the natural development comes about. But no one can permanently change the consciousness.

Disciple: The difficulty with our people is that they seek the easy path and are easily satisfied; they do not want to face an uphill task.

Sri Aurobindo: In the first place, they get easily satisfied. But the permanent change of consciousness is the one thing important. And our people do not want to take pains. Moreover, yoga is regarded as the realm of the miraculous. Another thing is that they do not want to be harsh to themselves: they want the satisfaction of feeling, “I am all right.”

X got this experience: the vision of the golden Mother over the head, and then the descent of a great calm. Then the next thing was to purify the whole being so that the experience might remain. But he could not do it and so he lost it. He got the experience and thought he had done everything! He could have asked: “What after all is this experience? What next?” These people get all sorts of experiences but when the question of permanent change of consciousness comes they are not able to take a firm step.

(After a pause) This yoga, to be done well, requires perfect balance. Therefore, those who have merely a general call for yoga should not go in for this yoga because it opens a possibility for the Higher Consciousness to work as well as a possibility for the powers of the vital world to come and take possession. If a man has not got the perfect balance, it becomes easier for these powers to take possession. Sometimes the man who has no faith in things invisible is much better off than the man who has faith in them or the man who has a tendency towards occultism. He is generally free — comparatively — from attacks from the other planes because he does not accept them and so is not open to them. While the man who believes in them gives them a chance. In this yoga you must have a “sane” mind.

Disciple: The general idea is that unless one has got a “screw loose” in his brain one would not come for yoga. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? If a screw is loose then the machine is not doing its work at all!

Disciple: The idea seems to be: the more “loose screws” the better chance for yoga. (laughter)

Disciple: I did not mean that. But does it mean that a sane man is more fit for yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course not; when I speak of want of balance in these people, I do not mean they are “insane”. It only means that their development is not proportionate, it is lopsided or there is a twist somewhere in the nature which prevents the harmonious development of all the parts.

Sri Aurobindo: That was the thing that saved me all through, I mean the perfect balance. First of all I believed that nothing is impossible, and at the same time I could question everything. If I had believed in every thing that came I would have been like Bijoy Krishna Goswami.,

Sri Aurobindo: Imagination is the power of conceiving things beyond the ordinary experience of life.

Disciple: Does it correspond to Truth? Or is there a higher faculty of which imagination is the representative in the mind?

Sri Aurobindo:It ultimately becomes “inspiration” when

it ascends higher. The purer it becomes the nearer it gets to Truth. For instance, in the case of poets, generally, it is the inspired imagination that works. What you meant to say about the scientist was perhaps “intuition”. (Pause).

The capital period of my intellectual development was when I could see clearly that what the intellect said may be correct and not correct, that what the intellect justifies is true and its opposite also is true. I never admitted a truth in the mind without simultaneously keeping it open to the contrary of it.

You see. Mind means infinite possibility. Reason or intelligence chooses one to the exclusion of all the other possibilities. But it is reason which gives value to one and selects it. It is like a law in science; you accept it because it explains most of the phenomena. In the mind we accept one and suppress the other possibilities and so we see the reasons for the view we hold and other reasons are suppressed. Or the intellect goes in a futile round and justifies the choice, which has already been made by some other part of the being.

Intellect is merely selective. I felt it very clearly for a long time. And the first result was that the prestige of the intellect was gone. As you go higher up, a wider movement develops which reconciles all contraries.

Then you see the Forces that are behind mental ideas. Of course, it is no use telling this to the ordinary man as he would be in a most hopeless confusion if he saw everything as mere possibilities. For instance, you would be absolutely confounded if I placed before you all the possibilities.

Disciple: When all intellectual operations appear merely as dealing with possibilities then what is to be selected and how is one to act?

Sri Aurobindo:There is no need to be puzzled. Simply

look at them, watch them, see what they are and what is behind them.

For instance, I can laugh at Shankara’s Mayavad or Mahatma’s views; but I can see the truth that ii behind them both. I know the place they occupy in the play of world-forces; for, it really comes to that

Sri Aurobindo: It has some. It is an advantage to those who are less advanced and a disadvantage to those who are more advanced. Collective Sadhana always requires somebody who can create the necessary atmosphere — not by anything else but his presence.

Disciple: How could the disadvantages be overcome and the burden on the leader or leaders lightened?

Sri Aurobindo: As I have just said, it requires somebody who can keep off certain forces and at the same time create an atmosphere by his presence. For instance I meditate with you here but I do not come out with the same consciousness that I have when I am insider. The burden is not a question of any individual. No one can help it.

A question arose from Sri Aurobindo’s remark about a new Disciple some days back.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know how far he would go in the yoga but, apart from it, he has something large about him, If he takes up the Sadhana more intensely he may find many difficulties, especially in the vital being. Largeness is an asset as well as an obstacle. But if he can go through, the result would be richer and more ample in his case. He is not, like K, straight and limited.

Disciple: Suppose two men begin the practice of the Supramental yoga and attain perfection in it, how, can we say that one is richer than the other, since both have reached perfection? Both are incomparable, each is great in his own way.

Disciple: Perfection being given, I believe grades would still remain. You start with a certain fundamental stuff and you can ultimately count upon that only.

Disciple: It is something like this: we say everything at the end of Sadhana becomes gold. But you start with a certain amount of copper that will become gold. If you have more copper to start with you will get more gold. Is it not so?

Sri Aurobindo: Why can there not be a richer fulfilment? You seem to think the Supramental to be a magnificent monotony! Why should not there be degrees among the Yogis and Siddhas?

Disciple: I have put my difficulty about the two men starting together and reaching the end. In what sense can one be said to be superior to the other, or his Sadhana richer than that of the other?

Sri Aurobindo: Why do you assume that all should be equal and that at no time one would be greater and richer than another? You must get rid of the democratic idea.

There are degrees, ranges and heights in the Supermind and they may be more defined than those that you find in the mind.

Disciple: When the whole being is Supramentalised then how can any difference remain?

Sri Aurobindo: If you talk of the essential being, then there is no difference between you and a cat and the trees, the essential Self is One. The difference exists in what one puts forth in Nature. In the Supramental also, that which is put forth through one Prakriti — nature — need not be identical with what is put forth through another; and in that case you can say that one manifestation can be richer than another.

Disciple: I am afraid I am not giving the same meaning to “Supramentalisation”. So, if you make the meaning clear I would be able to follow.

Sri Aurobindo: By Supramentalising is meant the process by which one allows the Supramental to come and take hold of the several parts of the being; complete Supramentalisation takes place when the Supramental takes hold of all the parts down to the physical body.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but you confuse “height” with “richness”. Two persons may be on the same plane and yet one may be richer than the other.

Disciple: I grant that one may go faster; but suppose you and I start together, then there must be no difference between us at the end!

Disciple: That is to say, if he reaches the goal first and gets hold of the Supermind — because he is faster — then you will come up and participate in the bundle! It would be Supramental Bolshevism!

Sri Aurobindo: No, it as not exactly like that; when you come to the goal I am already gone a stage higher up, you see.

Sri Aurobindo: But what do you mean by perfection? Perfection is a relative term. What is the Supramental state? It is also relative, it is not absolute.

Disciple: In that way one can say that every man has got infinite possibilities in him, and so all men are equal.

Sri Aurobindo: Every man has infinite possibilities in him but what reason is there to suppose that two men at a certain time must manifest, or actualise, the same possibility? You can say that every one has infinite possibilities realisable in an eternity of time.

Disciple: Yes. That eternity is a terrible affair! We are talking of things today, and possibilities in this life and it is true they can’t be the same for two persons.

Disciple: I grant that there may be a difference in the types of nature, or manifestation, but one can’t say that one is richer than the other. We may at the most say that they can’t be compared.

Sri Aurobindo: Why do you say that the difference can be of type only and not of degree? Take the case of mental perfection,— though that is also imperfect and only relative,— say myself and B.C.Pal. Both of us began under similar circumstances and got into the same kind of work and lived at the same time. He has remained stationary in his mental growth — he has ceased to grow. He has developed more power to speak — I mean he may have been a better speaker than myself, and in such one or two directions he developed more, but in general intellectual development I have cultivated my intellect in many directions and have a richer development in my mind. The same can be said of the Supermind.

Disciple: I may illustrate the difference in types by taking Tagore and J.G.Bose — both of them are intellectuals.

Sri Aurobindo:In the case of Tagore and Bose, on the whole

you can say that Tagore has got a richer development than Bose. He is a greater personality also.

Disciple: What would be the final development of Supermind being brought down to the physical consciousness? In what respect would it differ from icchā mṛtyu,— death at one’s will — mentioned in the old books?

Sri Aurobindo: What is really understood as icchā mṛtyu can hardly be called the conquest of death.

Disciple: Generally, when yogis know that the time for death is nearing, they draw up the Prana and prepare to die,

Sri Aurobindo: There is a process by which the Prana is drawn up into the brahmarandhra and then the man departs leaving the body. What is wanted is immunity from all sorts of diseases which are the agents of death, One must have the capacity to leave the body when one likes: that is, not be compelled to leave it by any external force. There are other kinds of pressures — for instance the psychic pressure — which may demand withdrawal from the body. In any case one must be able to leave the body like a clothing.

A friend of a Disciple who had taken yoga from some Guru came and wished to take up Sri Aurobindo’s yoga. He was told that this was not his path.

Disciple: I told him to seek out his old Guru again and stick to him. But he likes an “educated” and a “good-looking” Guru! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: He told me during our talk that he was “weak”. So I told him he must become strong; he is unwilling to sit down at his task, that means; does not want it.

I am afraid he would not stick to anybody. And then he has got this “educated” stupidity about his Guru! What people understand by education is some kind of ideas or thoughts and restlessness without any fixity of aim. He can take yoga from Tagore if he wants a good-looking Guru! The whole thing is that he is not prepared to take trouble.

Disciple: His idea of mahāpuruṣa — great man — is that he can make small men do what they alone cannot do.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you mean to say that the mahāpuruṣa can aspire on his behalf, and also sit down to yoga for him? I do not know how this idea about miraculous change by yoga has come to India. All along the Indian idea is that yoga is done by abhyāsa — practice — and tapasyā — concentrated will — and not by miracles. Some say that it came from the Vaishnava religion laying stress on consecration and prapatti — complete surrender. Some of the followers of Ramanujacharya think that as he had done the Sadhana his followers have not got to do it! How is that possible?

Disciple: But if that can’t be done, then where is the good of mahāpuruṣa — the great man? Where does he stand? (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: He stands on the ground and on his own legs! All that he can do is to show the path; he can give the experience and then the man must work it out by himself.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but no one can do the surrender for another man; each must make his own surrender. And surrender is not easy. If one can surrender “unconditionally” and “sarva bhāvena”— in all the parts of the becoming, as the Gita says — then there is nothing more to be done. But can a man do it? You can’t do it by merely saying, “I surrender.” It must become real, that is Sadhana.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by it? Do you think it so easy to surrender? It is very difficult, it is Sadhana itself.

Disciple: But supposing a man surrenders to a human Guru, would it be sufficient?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by surrender to a human being? And “sufficient” for what?

Sri Aurobindo: I suppose surrender to a man means surrender to the Divine in him, and whether it would be sufficient or not depends upon the man to whom he surrenders,

Sri Aurobindo: I suppose when a man surrenders himself to another man, he surrenders to the Truth in the man, in what other sense can one understand it? He can, of course, get whatever the Guru has got if he is sincere and if he has a still greater sincerity for the search he may be even greater than his Guru.

The disciples then began to recount stories about various Gurus. The question raised was: “Should the mahapurusa call himself God?” The difference between Rukmini’s and Radha’s surrender was also discussed. Rukmini laid down conditions in her surrender while Radha surrendered unconditionally.

Disciple: I now remember how Girish Chandra Ghosh some days before his death, said that though Ramakrishna had asked him to leave the burden of his Sadhana to him, yet Girish found he had not been able to transfer his burden to Ramakrishna.

Sri Aurobindo: But the idea in India is that yoga is a work of abhyāsa,— constant practice. How can one man

do Sadhana for another? Whatever may be the idea in other yogas, in our yoga, at any rate, to leave the burden to the Guru would defeat its own aim. Each must work out his way by himself. What the Guru can do at the most is that he can put the Power. But the rejection and the transformation are to be done by the Sadhaka himself. He can get the help when he needs. And when the Guru can put the Power one may not be able to hold it, or one may even spend it away uselessly. Everyone has to work out his way.

A suggestion was made to the newcomer to stick to his Vaishnava Guru from whom he had got the temporary experience of peace.

His objections to the Guru were: (1) That he was a Vaishnava. (2) That he did not generally speak and explain. (3) That he was not impressive — looking.

Sri Aurobindo: All these, if they are true, instead of being disqualifications are, on the contrary, recommendations! The fact that he can give experience in silence is a sign of a great Sadhaka. That he does not speak except when necessary is also a good sign.

He may be a Vaishnava or a Shaiva. That matters very little. That is religion; but this man does not want any religion from him. He wants spiritual development. What has that to do with religion?

And about impressive appearance, most of the people, who have it, get it from the vital world and turn out to be deceptive.

Today Sri Aurobindo was not in a mood to talk. He turned to X and said:

“If you want to talk you must put forward some subject. I am devoid of all talk today.”

Disciple: In this yoga what is the part of the Sadhaka and how far does it depend upon God and how far upon the Guru?

Sri Aurobindo: O Lord! That is too big a question. Do you want a mathematical reply or what?

Sri Aurobindo: First of all, in this yoga if you do everything yourself you make a mess; and yet at every moment you have to give consent to the higher movement, reject the lower and so far you have got to act. If you do not act properly then also you make a mess.

Even when you see the higher Force coming down you have to receive it properly. When the higher Force is present you have to see that you use it in the proper way without twisting or torturing it. When the higher Force is absent, you have to act yourself and take the consequences. You can’t say that God must do everything. God does not do everything that way.

Then there is the Guru. What do you mean by the Guru? If you mean myself, I may, for the sake of convenience, consent to be called the Guru, but there is no Guru in this yoga as people ordinarily understand the term. It is the Higher Force that is coming down. Generally, whenever any such Higher Force comes down then it prepares an instrument who discovers, but, really speaking, to whom the Truth is discovered and it manifests itself in him in proportion to his power of receptivity; there, too, the power is given to him,

When the Power that is coming down prepares; one such instrument it becomes easy for it to come down into others who want to manifest it, who do not want to go their own way but want to have and live the Truth. Then there is chance of success. (Pointing to himself) There is the instrument. Whenever there is the human instrument it becomes easy for the higher Truth to manifest itself in life. If you prefer to call it a “dynamo” you can say so. Even then everyone has to do his own work.

In this yoga, at any rate, you can’t say that “the Guru will do everything”, and leave the whole burden to him. I do not know about other yogas; but this yoga means growing conscious every moment of what is going on in oneself. One has to give consent to the higher working, rejecting the lower movement. That is the basis.

The conditions for receiving the Guru’s help are the same as those for receiving the help of the Higher Power directly. Unless you consent to his working, even God does not help man. In this yoga there is that perfect liberty to the individual to make his choice.

Sri Aurobindo: In both ways. As the Force is coming down you get it as anybody else can get it. You also get it from me. It is the same Truth. It is something beyond Mind that is coming down. If you turn to me for help you get it from me. Something from me goes to you and sets up the necessary conditions so that the Higher Force can come down into you. In fact, the two movements are not so separate as you take them to be.

Sri Aurobindo: I had to tell him clearly: If you want to do what you like and then want the Guru to help you I can’t do it. In his case there were two things wrong:

he had certain experiences and he began to indulg himself in them, to take the Bhoga of the experiences. He felt the exhilaration and the sense of power. When for two or three days he — went without food with that weak body of his, people used ti wonder. But it was all due to the vital force, and he entirely precipitated himself into the vital.

The second thing was that he did not want th Truth for its own sake but he wanted it so that he mighi become something great and unique — he wanted tht Truth for himself — he wanted to. become divine and used to tell me that he had already got half the Supermind. I was trying to push him into the physical consciousness. Unfortunately his psychic being had no hold over his other parts.

Disciple: Could the force that he pulled down — whatever its nature — have been warded off or kept away from him?

Sri Aurobindo: Not unless he would consent to it himself, God himself cannot help you unless you want to be helped.

Disciple: Was the tendency to twist the Truth, this want of sincerity, in him from the very beginning?

Sri Aurobindo: The seed of it must have been there. Such a seed can be either destroyed or developed. If you reject it, then it can be destroyed; if you develop it, then it can become strong and grow.

Sri Aurobindo: There was sincerity in him, otherwise he could not have got into the yoga at all; but when the other thing rises up it may cloud the whole being and overcome the sincerity.

Sri Aurobindo: I cannot be holding him tight like that a

along. If I attend to him like that then the moment I let go the hold and attend to someone else the difficulty will get into him again.

Sri Aurobindo: No. It cannot be done without his consent. Even God himself cannot and does not do like that and He is much more powerful than I am. Nothing can be done without the consent of the individual. I asked him not to pull the higher Power. He used to say “Yes Yes”, but he never stopped. At last he came to such a condition that he could no longer listen to me. He used to say that what he had got was the Supermind! When I told him it was not the Super mind, he would again say “Yes”, but go on in his own way. His only salvation was in his coming to the physical mind and behaving like an ordinary man.

Sri Aurobindo: No. He does not want to know; I can give him the experience of what is the true state but it is for him to reject the lower and consent to the higher working. I can’t be all along holding him.

That is to say, that part of the being which has consented to the lower play must withdraw, recoil from it: that is the condition for getting rid of the obstacle. It comes to this: in this yoga one can never be forced into the Truth. One has to consent to the Truth at every step.

Sri Aurobindo:I do not know. But I think some kind of consent somewhere in the being, veiled or unveiled, is absolutely necessary for the working of the power of the Guru. But the exterior does not matter. The real thing required is the central sincerity.

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is behind the mental, vital, etc., while what I call the Central Being is generally something above the whole being which presses on the nature and gets the thing done. It is that which drives the man to yoga. All the rest is merely an excuse — circumstances, intellectual ideas and such other things are mere excuses. In my own case I started with the idea of freeing India and then I entered deep into yoga, I found that something already had arisen and I went straight and all right; otherwise I would have deviated from the path.

In this yoga it is not sufficient that the Central Being, which is generally above, should give the consent from a distance, but, when necessary, it must be able to come forward and make itself felt upon other parts. It is that which usually saves. For instance, doubt may arise a hundred times in the being and for a while, it may seem to carry you away completely; even then it is the Central Being which asserts: “I know the Truth, I can wait for it.”

Sri Aurobindo: It is a very big question. You can say it is something in the central being which keeps to the call, There may be deviations from the path and also faults but if the central being is there the man comes back to the path. To have that central sincerity is the necessary condition for getting the Truth.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon what kind of power you are getting — there are so many kinds of powers.

Disciple: “Dodging and distorting” by the vital being seeming to be the common malady. But it is very difficult to set it right.

Sri Aurobindo: There is, and it may also deviate the Sadhaka from the right path. But even then mind has after all some aspiration for the light and it is comparatively easy to enlighten it. The whole real danger comes from the vital being; it is there that the Sadhaka deviates. It may happen that one can’t do the yoga because of some physical obscurity rising up, but if one has done the work up to the vital then there is no chance of deviation. If one falls in the struggle in the physical, it is no real falling; for, what is done will stand for the future. But if one deviates in the vital, then it is real deviation because it means defeat.

Generally such persons do not like the peace that descends. When X was here he felt that he was like an ordinary man, and he very much objected to that condition. When the higher Force is present, there is a sense of power and delight and some people mistake it for their own power and when that Force is absent they feel like chaff and, really speaking, it is so. At that time the only thing one can do is to remain quiet and calm. It is the Force that has to work and not the man.

Sri Aurobindo: If the transformation gets done in me thoroughly, then it means it is easier for others; and if it founds itself successfully in others it means the necessary conditions are there for its continuance in the world.

Disciple: It means that time is required for it; it also means the Truth cannot manifest itself — as a universal factor — unless the universal conditions are ready.

Sri Aurobindo: Time is the universal sense. Everything

may be there and yet the environment may not be ready.

Disciple: Is it not very difficult to establish a sincere demand in the nervous and the physical being?

Sri Aurobindo: Generally the physical is not insincere. In fact, it is sincere, but very obscure, conservative, slow to change, it is inert and dull.

In the nervous being the return to Ignorance comes because of the memory of the past, or because of the physical being throwing up its impurities, or the vital being throwing its impurities upon it. Therefore, in dealing with the nervous impurities you have to see from where they come. If the vital being is sincere then the return in the nervous being comes from the physical being.

The question of drinking and the use of narcotics by Sadhaks cropped up today at the evening table.

Disciple: Those Sadhaks who drink, or take narcotics, do they get Some help thereby in obtaining Samadhi?

Sri Aurobindo: All that depends upon what you call “Samadhi”. My own experience in the matter is that wine and narcotics generally inhibit the action of the most Tamasic centres in the physical brain; and the other centres in the brain get stimulated. This helps one to escape from the limitations of the physical consciousness and one may get into other planes of consciousness.

Generally, Sadhaks who live on mountains resort I to these things to get warmth and get rid of cold. Others I might resort to them to get away from the physical consciousness.

Disciple: Do they really get some help or merely imagine things and make it an excuse for drinking and satisfying their desire?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is sufficiently well-known that drinking and use of narcotics generally enable people — whether Sadhaks or not — to escape from the physical consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: One day Mother asked a workman why he was drinking. He said that after drinking he got thoughts which he could never get when he was sober. Coleridge wrote most of his poems when he was under the influence of opium. Somebody once praised a line of Tennyson. He said: “Ah! that line! It cost me 25 cigars!”

So there is no reason to suppose why a Sadhaka should not derive help from it. (Then after a pause) I don’t hope you have serious intentions in asking these questions! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by Samadhi? If you mean an inward-drawn condition, certainly it may help one to get into it.

Sri Aurobindo: There are many moods: there is the light mood, the angry mood, the emotional mood — you would be a great Bhakta if you got into the last.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a kind of unconscious Samadhi. (laughter) It may help one to concentrate. But what

one does with that concentration depends upon the man. My own idea is that of all these people, who resort to these external stimulants, ninety percent never go beyond — the vital consciousness. They get into it and then the vital is a great builder: it constructs any number of things, worlds, states etc. It can give you an idea that you are in the Highest. There are any number of Siddhis on the vital plane and if you have proper knowledge you can get them by using these things. And even if one gets into the Brahmic consciousness it is not that one has got the highest Truth, because the Brahmic consciousness can be had on any plane. You can have that consciousness on the mental or the vital plane.

These stimulants merely help you to get away from the physical. But what one does with that freedom depends upon the man. These are external means and therefore they have very bad reactions — they are not generally recommended in the spiritual life.

Disciple: There is a fear of Siddhis among spiritual aspirants and generally they are banned.

Sri Aurobindo: It must be due to the fact that once you get into the vital plane you find it very difficult to get tc the Truth. The general idea is that for the experiena of the Brahmic consciousness one must be always in drawn. But that is not quite true. I first had the silent Brahmic consciousness at Baroda as soon as I quieted my mind. It came, of course, to the mental being and I kept it for about a month. But I Was not unconscious, I saw people and things as Maya — all things only small and the One, the Reality, behind them.

The experience of Shunyam — the void — is stil more striking because you — get into it by a sort of negation even of the Atman — Self.

Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to describe it exactly, because it is Shunyam. A man may be passive, but then that experience of passivity is something positive. While Shunyam is nothing: it is absence of anything; the great Asat — Non-being — from which all things proceed — asato sadajāyata.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? If you ask whether they exist on the physical plane it is absurd, because by their very nature they are supraphysical. But they are real.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course The truth is that the Mental Purusha can take up any number of positions towards the ultimate Reality and in each position find a certain truth which is as absolute as the truths of the others. Each is thus complete, final. There is, for instaitee, a plane of dnanda which is self-existent; you remain in that state, you don’t care whether the house is falling or your head is breaking, or what is happening to your friends.

A question was not taken up the other day. The Disciple raised it again today: Is complete transformation possible without having a Shakti — a feminine counterpart in Sadhana?

Sri Aurobindo evidently was not prepared to say everything that was in his mind.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t understand why it should not be possible to bring about the transformation without a

Shakti. Transformation would be complete if one can bring down the Higher Consciousness that you get in the mind and the vital being into the physical being and even into the very cells of the material body. The conditions of complete transformation are that you should be able to keep the same deep peace, wideness, strength, purity, power and plasticity from the mind downward to the very material cells. That is the fundamental basis. This transformation does not require a Shakti — a feminine counterpart in Sadhana.

Disciple: Perhaps he wants to say that this transformation is only possible in your case and in no other.

Sri Aurobindo: In that case, I would be in the very sorrowful plight of being the solitary transformed individual. I would be in the position of the Purusha in the beginning of creation when he found himself alone! (laughter)

Disciple: What I wanted to say was not about doing yoga or getting Knowledge or Power, I was asking about incarnating the Divine in the body.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Incarnating the Divine means incarnating your own divine Self that is in the Supermind. It is something quite different from your present self; it is full of knowledge, power and ananda of the Supramental plane; yet it is a Person — not merely an impesonal being. As I said, the. conditions for that Being to come down and work here are that you must have the same deep peace, wideness, strength, plasticity etc. even in your physical being. Transformation is a personal affair, I don’t quite see what a Shakti has got to do with it.

You are mixing up things: 1. Transformation and the need of a Shakti, 2. You are mixing up myself and yourself!

Sri Aurobindo: I thought your question about Shakti was, perhaps, a distant preliminary to an application for marriage. (laughter)

(After a pause) I do not object to a Shakti if there is a genuine case. You can produce your Shakti, if there is one, up your sleeve! (laughter)

Disciple: He was thinking: “What is the good of transformation without a Shakti?”

Disciple: I have no personal concern in the question. I wanted to understand it and to have more knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo: I am not prepared to say everything on the question. I think I have already said something on some other occasion. The function of the Shakti is something quite different. In my own case it was a necessary condition for the work that I had to do. If I had to do my own transformation, or give a new yoga, or a new ideal to a select few people who came in my personal contact, I could have done that without having any Shakti. But for the work that I had to do it was necessary that the two sides must come together. By the coming together of the Mother and myself certain conditions are created which make it easy for you to achieve the transformation. You can take advantage of those conditions.

But it is not necessary that everybody should have a Shakti. People have a passion for generalisation.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question of great or small. It is a question of your being less complex than I am.

And before you can have a Shakti, you must first of all deserve a Shakti. The first condition is that you must be master of Kama, lust.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not the only thing. There are so many other things; as I said I am not prepared to say everything on this matter. One thing is that both must come together and there must be complete union on every plane of consciousness.

Disciple: But if the Shakti is there then all these conditions would be fulfilled.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you think that because there is meeting between the two in the Central Being, or somewhere else, the whole thing is done?

There are many personalities in man and in order to have complete perfection you must know the value of personality in the world. What is the true personality in you? There are various personalities on each plane and in the case of Purusha and Shakti they must all agree. It is a long and arduous Sadhana you have to undergo before such a complete union can take place.

Disciple: But at the rate at which we are progressing, if I multiply by the velocity the number of years, then I find very little chance of our being able to achieve it.

Sri Aurobindo: You are, now, in the condition in which you feel that the thing is impossible; you seem to be pessimistic.

Sri Aurobindo: I am not quite sure. You can’t judge from the present-day speed what it would be next year. At present we are marching on foot, then after some time we may ride on the bicycle, then in the motor car.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there was a time when I had to give up the idea of doing this work in my life-time. There was a great push in the vital being trying to do the thing very soon. Then I had to learn to give up all those ideas and leave it to God to do whatever He likes,

The vital being is easily elated and the physical being is depressed. I too had periods of depression, but at no time I lost faith. I knew that the thing had to be done and would be done, but I did not know whether I would be able to do it in my life-time, or whether somebody else would do it. The periods of depression with me were never long. As a matter of fact, I find this year far better than all the past three years.

Disciple: 1. Does not the fulfilment of Sadhana mean that the power of the Higher Truth should be made dynamic and effective on the physical plane — even with regard to outside work?

Sri Aurobindo: What makes you put these questions? There are two things: first is the constructive mind that wants to have some sort of image before it — of course, it wants mental lines and forms; secondly, it is the vital mind which wants to have a play.

It would be easy for me to reply to your questions if you want to know whether it is our aim to have the Higher Power working in all the fields of life.

I answer: “Yes, it is our aim to have the Higher Power which would be dynamic and effective in life.” What again do you mean by external work?

Disciple: I did not include Sadhana and inner changes but the dealing with and acting in the outside life.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you fix the limit? Has not each work to do with the inside life also?

Disciple: Yes, but there is in each work an inner and outer coefficient. I mean by external work that in which the coefficient of the outer is greater than that of the inner.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, take the case of your cooking: would you call it external or internal work?

Sri Aurobindo: That means you have not yet established the right attitude towards it; otherwise it would be a part of your inner work as well.

Disciple: I do not exactly mean that it cannot be a part of internal work. I shall try to explain: Suppose the Supermind has come down and that we are all Supermen, We shall have to live an external life,— we shall deal with each other etc. What would be the difference between our dealing and that of an ordinary man?

Sri Aurobindo: You ask like Arjuna in the Gita: “How does the sthitaprajna walk? How does he speak?”

Disciple: I don’t mean that; but what would be the fundamental difference between his external life and that of an ordinary man?

Sri Aurobindo: All fundamental change will be inner and not outer. That is to say, we shall have attained a higher consciousness and all we do will proceed from that consciousness.

But why this haste to know what would be the forms and lines of the Truth that has not yet come down into the physical? It is just the wrong way of proceeding, It would frustrate its own aim. Supposing you fix the form with your mind and say, “Such and such shall be the lines that the higher Truth must take whatever it be.” Now this form is your own mental construction, and whatever higher Truth comes down you will try to force it into that limited form.

As a matter of fact, the Truth that is coming down is not mental, it is an infinite Truth. The form it would take would be an organisation of that infinite Truth. But if you bind it down to a mental formula and say, for instance, that it should be democracy or communism

or socialism or anything of that: sort you naturally limit the Truth.

The one thing that Sadhana has done for me is that it has destroyed all “isms” from my mind.: If you had asked this question a few years back I would have told you “it is spiritual communism” or, perhaps, “commerce, culture and commune” as the Chandernagore people say. At that time it was: my mind that received the knowledge from Above and thought that the higher Truth would take a particular form — the one that I suggested to Motilal Roy. Even at that time I was not quite sure that it was the form,— only I thought it was the proper form and I took it up as an experiment.

But now if you ask me I would say “Wait and let us have the Truth down here.” Then it will not be the mind that will give form, the Supermind itself will create its own forms. It may be fluid and plastic and can be infinitely complex in its working out.

What we are doing at present is to make ourselves fit instruments for the higher Truth, so that when it came down there would be the proper instrumentation for its working. We won’t reject life; we have to bring a new consciousness into the external work. Supposing I am preparing fish for the cats. That is not my Supramental work. But as it happens to be there I do it, so as to be able to do anything that is needed in the proper way, without mistake. The tuning of the violin is not merely a physical but also a mental work — while this work is infinitely more complex. We have not to do our work mechanically, we have to become conscious of the forces that are at work and find out those that make for success and those that make for failure. We have to bring about the right movement.

Life has no “isms” in it, Supermind also has no “isms”. It is the mind that introduces all “isms” and

creates confusion. That is the difference between a man who lives and a thinker who can’t. A leader who thinks too much and is busy with ideas, trying all the time to fit the realities of life to his ideas hardly succeeds. While the leader who is destined to succeed does not bother his head about ideas. He sees the forces at work and knows by intuition those that make for success. He also knows the right combination of forces and the right moment when he should act.

Not that such a man does not make a plan with his mind for himself and for others, but even after making his plan if he finds that the forces have changed he does not hesitate to turn round and adopt another course. Look at Indian politicians: all ideas, ideas — they are busy with ideas. Take the Hindu-Moslim problem. I don’t know why our politicians accepted Mahatma’s Khilafat agitation. With the mentality of the ordinary Madan it was bound to produce the reaction it has produced: you fed the force, it gathered power and began to make demands which the Hindu mentality had to rise up and reject. That does not require Supermind to find out, it requires common sense, Then, the Madan Reality and the Hindu Reality began to break heads at Calcutta. The leaders are busy trying to square the realities with their mental ideas instead of facing them straight.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that India will be free, there is no doubt. Whether it will be by several peaceful stages on all on a sudden, that is the question. But that is the business of politicians, we need not have to bring down the Supermind for that. How it will be free is too big a thing to say. I am very much against a true politician giving out his plans to be torn and discussed by all

people. He ought to keep things to himself.

So far as I am concerned I have got my work and I am satisfied with it. Not that I have no idea about the work that would be done when the Truth comes down. But immediately at present we have to bring down a change in the physical mind, the nervous being, and the vital mind, so that they may become fit instruments of the Truth. That is a big enough work, I should think. Not that the final goal is not known. But I always keep my mind open for any change that the higher Truth may bring in it. I have got an idea but I don’t want to shut out any new light that may come.

So long as you discuss mental ideas, it does not matter very much — I mean about the yoga. There you can understand something and you have prepared yourself. But why should you want to know the practical side beforehand? In the first place, if I gave you some mental idea, you would grasp it mentally. There would be, first, the possibility of error in my idea. Then you would discuss it and create mental forms and you might commit worse mistakes and then they would ail be thrown about into the atmosphere and come in the way of its own fulfilment.

In these practical works there are not merely forces that help but also those that oppose. I don’t want them to know beforehand what I am going to do. I don’t believe, like Mahatma Gandhi, that secrecy in these matters is a sin. You must find out what role you have to play.

Sri Aurobindo: The higher Truth brings its own knowledge. It is not like the mind: the Truth that is coming down is knowledge.

(Turning to the Disciple) You want to know what role you have to play, but how can I tell you now?

I must know what is within you. You must find the true Person within yourself. First, when you have acquired the capacity to be a fit instrument of the Truth, then you will know what is intended of you. Then you find: “This is my work, and I have to do it in this way.” At one time it was thought that the mind could grasp the whole Truth and solve all problems that face humanity. The mind had its full play and we find that it is not able to solve the problems. Now, we find: that it is possible to go beyond Mind and there is the Supermind which is the organisation of the Infinite consciousness. There you find the Truth of all that is in mind and life.

For instance, you find that Democracy, Socialism and Communism have each some Truth behind it, but it is not the whole Truth. What you have to do is to find out the forces that are at work and understand what it is of which all these mental ideas and “isms” are a mere indication. You have to know the mistakes which people commit in dealing with the Truth of these forces and the Truth that is behind the mistakes also. I am, at present, speaking against democracy, That does not mean that there is no Truth behind it, I know the Truth, but I speak against democracy be cause that mentality is at present against the Truth that is trying to come down.

In order to get the true form — and if you want the unhampered play of the higher Truth what you have to do is to be very open and ready for changing all your ideas — personal, social and national. Take taste and food: I was once a violent non-vegetarian, as X is at present a violent vegetarian. Then I found that it was my own vital being that was demanding meat. Well, I gave it up and for years together I went on taking whatever came my way. Then I found that

even what people call “tasteless” and “bad” food has got a taste in it.

Disciple: Is it the experience of Sama Rasa — the essential delight in everything?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, today I am a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian together and I know what people want to enjoy when they demand and insist; on a certain kind of food. In order to arrive at that stage you have to give up your individual likes and dislikes — because that is a very limited condition — and enter into the universal consciousness and find:what the cosmic spirit enjoys through each of these forms, what delight it derives from each.

Sri Aurobindo: You again come to the old question of humanity. I have nothing directly to do with it. If this supramental Truth comes down then of course no problem remains because in the Supermind there are no problems — there is Truth. But it is not likely to happen that way, because that is not the way things are done in this universe. We can expect a small beginning. When the highest Truth comes down in its full power then humanity may manifest even the perfection of the Divine in life in this world. But that is not yet.

Disciple: Is it possible to have some idea of the minimum requirement for being a Superman?

Sri Aurobindo: Is this not like an examination? It is rather a hard question to answer.

Sri Aurobindo: No. But one may say that it requires: 1.Complete opening from the highest mind to the most material part — all must open to the Truths — a sort of perfect square from top to bottom. 2. Raising the centre of consciousness into the plane of the Truth consciousness so that one is normally seated on the Supramental plane.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, all the time. The third thing needed is the establishment of harmony between, and organisation of, all the movements of nature — mental, vital and physical in the light of the Truth. All this not in order one after another but at the same time,

Sri Aurobindo: The gradations of the Supermind are four; 1. Saramā 2. Sarasvatī 3. Ilā 4. dakṣiṇā.

Disciple: When all the parts of the being are opened to the Truth, does the struggle with the hostile forces become more acute?

Sri Aurobindo: That depends on the work that is done before the opening: that is to say, one must have worked out to some extent the impurities in the nature before the opening. All this one must have done consciously.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? opening also means becoming conscious of the movement of nature.

Generally, one goes through the gradations of the Supermind. I have written about it in the Arya. Then I was speaking not about the highest Supermind but about the highest Supermind “in the Mind”. There is, for instance, the Intuitive Mentality. It is not Supermind but Mind. You can say it is Supermind working on the basis of Mind — by flashes. From the point of view of the highest Supermind, intuitions are “glorious guesses”. Of course, the guesses may be quite correct.

The other three gradations are: 1. the Representative 2. the Interpretative 3. the Imperative. As you go on developing, the higher and higher grades become active. The Intuitive Mentality is a kind of “modified Supermind”.

Sri Aurobindo: Supermind as it comes down modifies the mental movements and in turn gets modified itself also.

Sri Aurobindo: Agni is the power behind all internal effort. Kratu is will and some other things also.

Disciple: You said yesterday that watches respond to mental thought and will. What did you exactly mean by it?

Sri Aurobindo: That they respond to your suggestion — if you can make it in the right way.

Sri Aurobindo: No, not if there is something wrong in the mechanism. There must be sufficient mechanical basis for the suggestion.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, If you have a will sufficiently strong for the purpose. It may take some time before the response comes.

Disciple: When there are many Supermen, what language will they use? Or would they use the same language and convey more meaning and force?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary to be Supermen for that; poets can do that without being Supermen.

Disciple: All our language is mental and it is said that at one time there was only one natural language.

Sri Aurobindo: Our language is not mental in its origin, it was only half-mental at the most. Man began to use language not so much to express ideas as to convey “sensations” and a certain sound was made to convey a certain sensation. The word employed was not so important as the sound itself and the different shades of it were conveyed by intonations of the same sound,

Sri Aurobindo: It is likely. In the past, men used sounds to convey sensations and each word expressed many “things” —

As mind developed, ideas began to be expressed and each word was bound down to convey only one meaning. This evolution of language is very clearly visible in the history of Sanskrit and at one time I proceeded far enough into the study — of the subject,

Disciple: How can the general atmosphere of humanity affect the Sadhana of the individual or the group?

Sri Aurobindo: You see all sorts of things come to you from the universal; that is, from the general atmosphere of humanity — thoughts and ideas in the mind, impulses; etc. in the vital being and so on. It is for this reason that a Sadhaka has to isolate himself from the general atmosphere and create his; own fort where; these things cannot come in easily.

Sri Aurobindo: In these matters it is no good forming mental ideas and ideals and trying to cut the behaviour according to it. Again, it depends on the Guru.

Disciple: What I wanted to know was: is there anything like grace—what it called ahaitukī kṛpā?

Sri Aurobindo: You mean to say that the Guru would give everything whether the Disciple deserved it or not? What do you mean by ahaitukī kṛpā?

Disciple: I do not know the exact meaning, but I believe it is what may be called “grace”. Something from the Divine descending in man.

Sri Aurobindo: But grace is also a part of divine wisdom. You do not mean to say that divine grace is due to a chance caprice of God! It is there because the divine knows its purpose.

Disciple: ahaitukī bhakti and kṛpā means that there is no purpose — that is, human purpose or reason — which man can attribute to it. But there is always some other purpose which man may not be knowing.

Disciple: Then is there nothing like the personal side of the Guru? I was all along thinking that there is the personal side as well as the impersonal side. Any one who opens himself to the impersonal side of the Guru gets the Truth, but unless there is surrender to the personal it is not complete. This personal side of the Guru can use divine grace.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the Guru. If he is a human Guru then his personal vital or mental preferences may play a part and often they falsify the purpose of grace. The less they interfere the better. But what did you mean by the personal and the impersonal? Do you mean to say that if you gave me a lot of fruits and other things every day there would be a lot of spiritual things going from me to you? (laughter)

Disciple (to Sri Aurobindo): But then, is there nothing like patit-pāvan —the Divine purifying the fallen and the low?

Disciple: It is specially the work of grace to raise up the adhama — “the low and the fallen”.

Sri Aurobindo: That is to say, the Divine must neglect the uttama, the best, and be partial to the adhama, the low? (laughter)

It is like the Christian idea that he who is favoured by God gets a “flogging”. The more a man is flogged the more favoured he is!

Sri Aurobindo: As I said, it depends on the Guru. You don’t mean to say that the personal side of the Guru decides

voluntarily and independently of the Divine what is to be given to a disciple. Even when it appears to take that form it is something else that decides. The more the personal element (in the sense of the vital or mental preference on the part of the Guru) the more is the likelihood of mistake being committed. If he is a mere human Guru, then if he is a Bengali he would like to give his grace to Bengalis or he would choose his relatives. That has nothing to do with the divine work. All that idea about patit-pāvan and adham uddhār means only this that however bad or seemingly wicked the external life may be, the man can yet be saved if he has something in him which can receive the Truth. One may say that even for grace to descend there are conditions.

Sri Aurobindo: If you take the stand that everything is decided by the Divine then we have nothing to do but to sit still. If you drive the matter to a mental logical extreme then you have to come to a dead stop.

Disciple: Is there anything like predestination, everything about a man being fixed by something Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: No, as I said already, in these questions, so long as man is talking mentally, his words will hardly have any sense. For, the thing that is decided the decision is taken on so high a plane that for man to say that “all is decided” is rather too much.

Sri Aurobindo: It is one of the conditions. There is also the

power to receive the Force and many other things. It is not as simple as many people imagine — that the Guru gives and the disciple takes.

Disciple: Is it not true that of all the disciples of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda got the greatest benefit?

Sri Aurobindo (after a pause): Well, it is very doubtful; evidently he was the strongest of them all and so he manifested it most and put it forward in his expression. But that is not the measure of spirituality.

Disciple: For instance, a silent man like Brahmananda may have more of it than any other.

Sri Aurobindo: Many times outer success is not beneficial to a man’s inner progress. Sometimes it may be better for a man’s progress that he should fail than succeed.

Sri Aurobindo: Because success may mean being led away from the path; of course, it depends upon what you mean by success. If you mean success in external life then it is a different matter. But if you mean “following the upward line of his evolution” then the so-called outward success may be harmful.

Disciple (turning to another): Suppose you had become a minister — you might have been successful in the external sense, but what would have happened to your spiritual development?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and our X would have been a big official somewhere and might have retired with a pension. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Why, if I had followed the line of extenal success I would have been somewhere in Baroda! That life was easy.

Sri Aurobindo: It is like the seed of a tree. If it does not get the soil it may not grow. If I had stuck to my job I would have been a Principal, perhaps, written some poetry and lived in comfort like a bourgeois.

All the energy that I have I owe to yoga. I was very incapable before. Even the energy that I put forth in politics came from yoga.

Disciple: You said about the forces that control money that two conditions were necessary. First, one must be very calm and must not get disturbed and have no desire for money. Secondly, it requres a bojhāpadā — an understanding — with the universal forces. What is this understanding?

Sri Aurobindo: There are many ways. Even in the case of one man there are different methods, I mean in the yogic sense, which he can follow. First, you must put your need before God and ask him to satisfy it; your duty ends there. In that case you need not have any bojhāpadā — understanding — with the universal forces.

But we look upon money as a power of the Divine, and, as with everything else, we want to conquer it for the Divine in life. Hence, in our case an “understanding” is necessary. As the money-power today is in the hands of the hostile forces, naturally, we have to fight them. Whenever they see that you are trying to oust them they will try to thwart your efforts. You

have to bring a higher power than these and put them down. First, they try to trick you by offering success,— one can say, by trying to buy you up. If a man falls into that trap then his spiritual future is ruined.

You have really to follow a certain rhythm of the money-power, the rhythm that brings in and the one that throws out money. Money is given to you in the beginning; then, you have to deserve it. You have to prove that you do not waste it. If you waste it, then you lose your right to it.

Sri Aurobindo: Waste is waste. Throwing away money without any order, unorganised expenses without regard to the means of getting money or to the utility of spending. It is not that you have to hoard money. It is there for being spent. But we must spend it in the right way — in a certain order and with an arrangement.

Sometimes the Divine even follows man’s caprices, as is typified in the case of men like Thakur Dayananda,

Disciple: Yes. Whatever he gets must be spent away on that very day, that is the rule; and they all wait till they get their next day’s food.

Sri Aurobindo: The result is that sometimes for seven days they get so much food that they can’t eat and then fifteen days they have to starve!

Disciple: Even the industrial magnates who get money into that rhythm of which you spoke.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, they do, otherwise they can get rich. They take it in and then again they throw it out, then it returns and again it is thrown out. That

is the reason why they get colossal wealth. These rich people often have no attachment to money, it is the action of the vital force that they enjoy, not their money.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That was the ideal of the Vaishya as opposed to the Bania — the miser. The Vaishya was the man who could get tremendous wealth and could spend it liberally, could establish the interchange and enter into the rhythm.

Disciple: No, they are not. We think them greedy because they don’t give money in the way in which we want them to give. They generally spend it in the old conventional way. We think them greedy also because they are particular about small things in their business caring for pies.

Sri Aurobindo: It is very necessary. It is exactly that which brings them the money.

Disciple: Henry Ford has also got that habit and so has become rich. He describes in his biography how he started with the idea not of making money but of giving people a quick conveyance at a small price.

Sri Aurobindo: The Americans have got the knack of getting into the rhythm which brings them money. The French method, for instance, does not succeed because they follow out small narrow paths, while the Americans boldly get into movement on a large scale and money circulates and as it circulates it accumulates and increases life wherever it flows.

Disciple: You said that some men have got in their vital being a special capacity that draws money to them.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Some have it. And some women also

have got it. Women can give a tremendous push to a man in anything he does. There are also women who are lakṣmī chādā — those that take away what you may have.

Disciple: Can the attack of the hostile forces be made use of by the Sadhaka for his progress?

Disciple: In our yoga we have to discontinue the lower movement of nature as being an obstacle to Sadhana, but the Tantrics — specially the Vira Sadhakas — turn these obstacles to account and, taking help from these, they build up spiritual life.

Sri Aurobindo: I have no objection to taking fish and even you can take wine, if it suits you, but how can the sexual act be made to help in spiritual life? In itself the sexual act is not bad as the moralists believe. It is a movement of nature which has its purpose and is neither good nor bad. But, from the yogic point of view, the sexual force is the greatest force in the world and if properly used helps to recreate and regenerate the being. But, if it is indulged in in the ordinary way, it is a great obstacle for two reasons. First, the sexual act involves a great loss of vital force, it is a movement towards death, though this is compensated by creation of new life. That it is a movement towards death is proved by the exhaustion felt after it; many people feel even a disgust.

Disciple: But statistics have been collected to show that married people live longer than bachelors.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a fallacy. Someone will say that he lived a hundred years because he did not smoke and another will assert that he has lived up to that age with smoking.

The second reason is: the excitement accompanying the ordinary sexual act destroys the psychic possibilities of the man. He gets separated and dissociated from the higher centres of consciousness and goes downwards. People say that they take the attitude of Shakti taking Bhoga through them, but that is only a way of saying. People indulge in lower movements, yield to hostile forces and at the same time pass as yogis. Even, the Vedantic attitude is often made an excuse for yielding to the hostile forces. “All this is Maya, illusion, there is no virtue, no sin, no good, no evil,” they say and give themselves up to lower vital forces.

Sri Aurobindo: No, but they offer an opening to the hostile forces and the hostile forces use these lower movements for their own purpose.

Disciple: As regards the degrading effects of the sexual act, does marriage and legal sanction make any difference?

Sri Aurobindo: Absolutely none. These moral injunctions are for the maintenance of society, for the welfare of the children born, but so far as the yogic life is concerned the sexual act with one’s own wife is as much harmful as that with any other woman. Only those who have risen above the human level, those who have a certain kind of spiritual force as well as vital force, can possibly make a proper use of the sexual act for a spiritual purpose. If Sadhakas at a lower stage take to these things they are certain to fall.

Disciple: If the sexual act is so full of danger, why should it

at all be used as a help? Why not confine oneself to a safer course?

Sri Aurobindo: That is a dangerous question to answer. I shall answer that question when you have risen above the human level.

Disciple: When one has reached, that level beyond the human consciousnes, how is the loss due to the sexual act averted? What happens to the excitement and dissociation from the higher centres of consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: The Higher Power can take up the things in its own way and prevent the harmful effects. Then the method and the act become absolutely different from the human.

Disciple: My original question was whether the attack of the hostile forces can be utilised by the Sadhaka?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; by conquering it. The Sadhaka acquires knowledge of the action of the hostile forces and of the defects in his own nature which invite the attack.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, new openings may occur to the Higher Power, his strength may increase and so forth.

Disciple: Can a hostile force be changed and transformed by conquest into something good and helpful?

Sri Aurobindo: A force of nature can be so transformed, but how can you change a hostile being or its; force? Of course, the hostile beings have certain forces of nature in their clutches. If you conquer the hostile beings these forces of nature are liberated and help in fulfilling the Lila of God. Thus anger is a; force, of; nature in the clutches of hostile powers. If it can be freed from their influence, it can be used for the divine purpose.

Sri Aurobindo: God does not hesitate to strike or smite.

He often behaves in a manner which to the ordinary mind may appear to be cruel. But the attitude is quite different. Thus, in the Vedas, the Panis steal the cows of heaven — the Sun — and conceal them in the caves. When the Panis are conquered the cows are released and rise heavenward.

Disciple: So, can one say that the Higher Power sends hostile forces to the Sadhaka?

Sri Aurobindo: The hostile forces are there and the Higher Power may use them for its own purpose. Of course, everything comes from the Supreme Power, but that must not be understood in the crude way. The hostile power may be used to test the capacity of the Sadhaka.

Disciple: The Higher Power may, sometimes, act as a hostile power as when by the descent of the Higher Power the Sadhaka breaks down.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, by the descent of the Higher Power the unfit Adhars break down, while the fit ones progress. There are certain risks but all great achievements involve dangers and risks. When one is not fit and prepared and constantly calls to God, “Come down, come down,” then the Power may come down and the Adhar may collapse.

Disciple: Is the power of the hostile attack always proportional to the resisting power of the Sadhaka?

Sri Aurobindo: Not always; otherwise why so many failures and defeats? The Guru may fill the deficiency.

Disciple: At times does the Guru even ward off the attack without any effort on the part of the Sadhak?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There is no general rule; in some eases the Guru does the whole thing, sometimes the Sadhaka acts and the Guru helps — which means that the Higher Power helps and the Guru is made only an instrument.

Disciple: In the Tantra there seems to be symbolism. There are different Chakras — centres — which open one after another.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no fixed rule as to which opens first. The heart is the psychic centre and if that opens first, it is a very good opening.

Disciple: It is said that in the Vāman, incarnation God, in the form of the dwarf, demanded three steps from the Titan, Bali. Does that signify that the three worlds — the physical, the vital and the mental — were in the Asura’s possession and the Divine demanded that they should be liberated and become the dominions of God himself?

Disciple: When the Mind is transformed by the action of the Higher Power what are the changes that take place in the Mind?

Sri Aurobindo: The reasonings and the fanciful constructions of the mind cease: there remains only a play of intuitions.

Sri Aurobindo: When the whole mind is intuitionised, it knows directly and therefore needs no reasoning. I see you before me; so, why should I argue whether you exist or not?

Disciple: Reason may not be required for acquiring the Truth, but, for practical application of the Truth reasoning may be necessary.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you think that Truth is not practical?

The Truth is not something abstract. As long; as the mind reasons there is the possibility of error.

Disciple: As regards mental constructions,— are they always incorrect? May not they be inspired by the Truth?

Sri Aurobindo: Mind may build on its intuitions, but there is every likelihood of its committing mistakes or errors. Mental transformation is a gradual process. First, the reasoning and constructions are silenced. Then the mind becomes intuitionised. Then one feels that there is something above which is much more than intuition. Intuition goes downwards and the higher Truth takes the place of intuition. At present, you find it difficult to understand how all reasoning and constructions of the mind can cease. That can be understood when you know what is intuition.

Disciple: I understand that reasoning and constructions are obstacles to the coming of the Truth.

Disciple: Then one must correct these things before the higher Truth can come down.

Sri Aurobindo: You cannot do that; it is only the Truth which can change the nature and activities of the mind. You can only quiet them so that the Truth may come down and take up the Transformation.

Sri Aurobindo: If you do nothing else but merely silence the mind you will have a silent mind and nothing else.

Disciple: When a developed mind opens to the Truth and an underdeveloped mind opens to it which will be the richer of the two?

Sri Aurobindo: First you have to see whether the under — developed mind can open itself to the higher Truth; generally it cannot. Then, it may have a narrow opening and the result will be limited. The higher

Truth may afterwards develop the mind but if the mind is already developed, there is already a rich material upon which the Truth can work. But the too much developed mind is also an obstacle. It has its fixed habits, its fixed grooves to which it sticks tenaciously. With the coming down of the Truth the mind may suddenly develop new powers — painting or poetry etc.

Disciple: Would it not mean that the preparation for these faculties was done in a past life?

Sri Aurobindo: You do not mean to say that if a man begins to understand Chinese suddenly he was a Chinese in his past birth?

Disciple: How is it that some unfit persons are drawn this yoga while some fit persons are riot drawn to it

Disciple: I mean something in them pushes them to this yoga and then it is found that they are unfit and; they are pushed simply to be broken.

Sri Aurobindo: You mean to say that the man is pushed by something hostile into the yoga and that there is nothing in him that wants it?

Sri Aurobindo: It can’t be. Something in the man who takes the yoga wants the Truth, but the other parts may not be able to follow it.

Disciple: That is to say, such persons are not fit for yoga, and yet they take to it and get broken.

Disciple: We mean an aspiration for the Truth and some strength in the vital being and a developed mind.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, a man may have; all the necessary qualifications you speak of and may appear strong, and yet he may not be able to go through; while another man may appear weak and yet something behind intervenes and he is able to go through. So there is no mental rule in this matter.

Sri Aurobindo: As I say, something in them wants the yoga and pushes them. In some cases it is “destiny” that pushes them.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is a general term to cover up anything inexplicable (laughter).

Disciple: Does it mean that the man is driven to the path because he is “chosen”?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, you can call it “chosen” or “accepted” or anything else you like; that won’t help the matter.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not a; question of your “thinking” that you are chosen. There are plenty of people who think that they are, accepted — while as a matter of fact they are not. On the other hand, there are people who go on persisting in the belief that they are not accepted almost, to the, very end and then they find that they have succeeded.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? He had at any rate something which wanted the yoga, otherwise he would not have been pushed into it. But the arrogance of his mind and vital being came in the way and he lost the chance.

Disciple: Take the case of people from X district. How much they try, and yet they do not make any headway and still they persist in pursuing what they call Sadhana. I wonder why they do it. And has their doing it any utility?

Sri Aurobindo: Evidently, because something in them wants the yoga but the Adhar, the material instrumentation, is unfit. And about utility, how can you know the utility? Something is working and these are, as it were, materials in the boiling pot. Some get prepared, others don’t. You can’t wait and start the spiritual life after all the conditions are secure. And what is fitness?

Sri Aurobindo: I have not come across anyone who has all the fitness required for this yoga. What is your idea of fitness?

Disciple: We see some people who look to us “fit” for this yoga but they don’t come to it while others who have nothing come to it and don’t get anything.

Sri Aurobindo: And there are cases where what you call a strong man breaks down and the weak man some how manages to go through.

Sri Aurobindo: I have often told of them. Those go through who have the central sincerity. It does not mean that the sincerity is there in all the parts of the being. In that sense no one is entirely ready. But if the central sincerity is there it is possible to establish it in all the parts of the being.

The second thing necessary is a certain receptivity in the being, what we call, the “opening” up of all the planes to the Higher Power.

The third thing required is the power of holding the higher Force, a certain ghanatwa — mass — that can hold the Power when it comes down.

And about the thing that pushes there are two things that generally push: One is the Central Being. The other is destiny. If the Central Being wants to do something it pushes the man. Even when the man goes off the line he is pushed back again to the path. Of course, the Central Being may push through the mind or any other part of the being. Also, if the man is destined he is pushed to the path either to go through or to get broken,

Disciple: There are some people who think they are destined or chosen and we see that they are not “chosen”.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, plenty of people think that they are specially “chosen” and that they are the first and the “elect” and so on. All that is nothing.

Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say. But this can be said that everyone of those who have come in has some chance to go through if he can hold on to it.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, and besides, the whole universe is a play of forces and one can’t always wait till all the conditions of success have been fulfilled. One has to take risks and take his chance.

Disciple: What is meant by “chance”? Does it mean that it is only one possibility out of many others, or does it mean that one would be able to succeed in yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: It means only that he can succeed if he takes his chance properly. For instance, X had his chance.

Disciple: Those who fall on the path or slip, do they go down in their evolution?

Disciple: The Gita says: Na hi kalyānkṛt — nothing that is beneficial — comes to a bad end.

Sri Aurobindo: That is from another standpoint. You must note the word is kalyān kṛt — it is an important addition.

Disciple: It is written in a book that the Japanese have given up their own instruments and have taken to European music. Is it true?

Disciple: I think Japanese instruments are also found in plenty — you also find European instruments, orchestra etc. There are places where you find Japanese music and drama patronised and there are many people who like them very much.

The talk then turned to the Theosophical Lodge started in Japan, which ceased functioning very soon after the founder had left Japan.

Sri Aurobindo: Probably, even in the Lodge there were more foreigners than the Japanese

Disciple: There were only two Japanese, one Dutch, one Pole and so on. The Japanese mind is not interested in these things — philosophy, metaphysics etc.

Disciple: How can a man get things done for him by the Higher Power unless the Higher Power becomes known to him or is, at least, partly realised?

Sri Aurobindo: If it is known by the mind, then, like all mental realisations, it gets mixed up. Mind divides, infers, conceives and then lays down mental standard for the Divine. It dictates to God that He shall satisfy mental standards. Mind is not the entire consciousness, it is partial. Mind is, again, arrogant and believes that it is the highest instrument, the master or even king of the

universe. It has the error of false knowledge, it is limited to partial light.

The Vital mind is rampagious; it wants to do things, it is violent. It says: “Yes, I surrender, but I want God to do this.” It does not say it does not want to surrender. The physical mind is obscure and dull. In the vital, almost unconsciously to oneself, one tries to make a show — there is a tendency to pretension.

In the ideal case one is ready to admit one’s own defects and be on guard to watch with spiritual humility. But all these things make the Higher Power’s working very difficult in the lower nature. Therefore we insist so much on sincerity in this yoga. It is the psychic being which has no such pretensions because it knows and can surrender to the Divine. It is therefore that in our yoga the awakening of the psychic being is so important. That alone gives one the psychic tact which steers clear of all difficulties.

Sri Aurobindo: You can leave the building up of the Sadhana to the Higher Power.

Disciple: There is an article in the Madras Mail by Keynes in which the writer says that the attempt in modern times to establish Government monopoly is not desirable and people do not know what really happens.

Sri Aurobindo: The writer is too busy looking at facts and so he does not see what is coming. The struggle between Capital and Labour is there and Socialism and Collectivism or Communism had to be

brought in to counteract the individualistic tendencies of the present-day civilisation. Assertion of the collective being is necessary for organisation and efficiency because the tendency of Capitalism was, and would be, to concentrate the power of money in the hands of the few. It is futile to expect the capitalists to move from philanthropic motives. Capitalism, Socialism, Communism have each a truth behind them. Formerly there were three parties viz. Capital, Labour and the Government. In some countries the governments have been largely influenced by capitalists. For instance, in England the Government acting as a third party has hardly remained neutral. It is clear from the coal-strike. It is really very difficult for any Government to resist the power of money, except in a country like Russia which is based on revolutionary principles. Even there the Government has identified itself with labour and, from all reliable reports, it has made the condition of the labourers much better, as far as could be done in a poor country like Russia. In Italy, Mussolini tried to establish the Government as a third party to control both Labour and Capital but even there Capital seems to have largely succeeded.

Disciple: You said yesterday that realisation of God is not sufficient to change human nature.

Disciple: The question arose from a conversation which we had about the Christian mystics. They have an idea that once they realise the Divine Consciousness there is nothing else to be done. They also maintain that after that all the work a man does is., not his but God’s.

Disciple: Generally, they were monks and so they used to do the work of the Church.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what I say, that even when one gets the experience of the Divine Consciousness once, one generally remains what he was in his mental and vital being. And so they go about with the usual ideas of the Church or religion in the orthodox sense, making themselves believe that it is the divine work.

It is another side of the Adwaitawadins — the monists — who believe the world to; be Maya, illusion. Once you get the realisation of the Brahman the rest does not matter — they don’t mind what happens to the lower nature. If there are movements in the mental or the vital being, they are simply due to the past impulse, and you have nothing to do with them, they are outside you, they do not belong to you.

When I said that mere realisation of God is not sufficient I meant that such a realisation is not; sufficient to bring about a permanent change of consciousness. It needs the working of the dynamic Power of God to change human nature.

Disciple: It so happens in their case because even the first glimpse of the Divine Consciousness is so over-powering, that it is too much for them! They are satisfied with the experience.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true that all ādhārs — nature-formations — have not the capacity to hold the Divine Consciousness and they don’t make any effort to increase the capacity of the natural instrument. Once you come down from the Divine Consciousness you are again like an ordinary man. One ought to go on increasing the capacities of his natural instrument in complexity and many-sidedness so as to hold the Divine when it comes down.

Disciple: They speak of Samadhi in which one enters into Turiya — the fourth state.

Disciple: I find it very difficult to enter into Turiya. Immediately I try I go to sleep! (laughter)

Disciple: What happens to their nature-part after their realisation of the Brahman?

Sri Aurobindo: They don’t care about what happens to their nature-part. It is this idea of realisation that gave the belief that one who realises the Brahman acts like bāla, (a child), jada, (inert), unmatta, (a mad man), or pisāch, (one possessed by lower vital forces).

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think it is so easy. I think the only man who came very near to it was Jada Bharat, the sage.

Disciple: Even he burst out while carrying the king’s palanquin,— the occasion was too tempting! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: You better ask the Brahman! It is a knotty question to answer. Perhaps Brahman would have said: “You are too argumentative to enter into me”! But it is like the “hen and egg” question.

Disciple: But according to the Advaita philosophy, all is in the Brahman, or one can say, God is in everything,

Sri Aurobindo: On its highest plane the Jiva is the true Divine being. But it is on every plane. When you realise the Divine you know your true being and also you know God and his purpose in your Jiva. One can get into contact with it through the Central Being,

Disciple: I wanted to understand how belief is known

different levels — mental, vital, and physical.

Sri Aurobindo: I will say something about belief and then you try to understand it by what it is not.

Mental faith believes in an idea. That is to say, Mind believes in what it thinks. The Vital believes in what it desires, and the Physical believes in what it senses.

Disciple: Does the transformation come first or the realisation of the Divine Consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It demands a mental faith which is the anticipation of the knowledge that is coming. Vital faith anticipates the effectuation that is coming. Faith in the physical anticipates what is going to be realised.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is a difference. Effectuation is the work of force, realisation is a fact. This object lying here is a fact, it is not a force.

Sri Aurobindo: The third and the fourth Mandala contain many subtle suggestions about the symbolism of the Veda. The hymns of Dirghatamas in the first Mandala are clearly mystic. The experience of the Rishis is common in general principles but it varies in detail. These details are hard to fix because you do not find any parallel to them in other hymns. And so, sometimes you become helpless. The general idea of the functions of Agni is the same. He is kavi-kratu — “one with a seer-will” or “one possessed of the seer-will”. You have also to see the connection of Agni with Satya, the Truth. The good, the “Shreyas”, which Agni does is the increase in Truth — Satyam. In the Brahmanas there are many hints that suggest the symbolism in the Veda. Yama, probably, is the Truth working on the physical aspect of the universe. The word dhī, ṛtam, satyam, bṛhat are among the important words for Vedic interpretation. Trim rocana when applied to svar refers to the three divisions of the svar. When it refers to three heavens, it means the heavens of the mental, vital and physical fulfilment. When each of these is fulfilled it is called “heaven” and its

fulfilment is by the highest Truth. Agni’s “own” — svam damam — is the highest Truth., In V.12. the Rishi does not want the mixture of Truth and falsehood but wants only the Truth. Agni’s own is full of joy: Ananda is the pratistha — basis of the Divine Will. Swadhdwdn means “having the law of its own being”.

In Mandala 1.95 there is mention of the “child” that is One — that child is Agni. He is called “the son of two mothers” — of different colours — of Day and Night — i.e. of Knowledge and Ignorance. Swarthe: means “by the right path”. Anyanya means “to each other” — alternately. “Hari”, “full of coloured light”; Sukra, “white, shining white”. Suvarca, “full of bright light.” Dasa yuvatayah [1.95.2] “Ten young women bear the child — garbha — by Twashtri” daśemaṃ tvaṣṭurjanayanta garbhamatandrāso yuvatayo vibhṛtram [1.95.2.]

Sri Aurobindo: This idea of poverty was never the Hindu ideal, not even for the Brahmin. Gandhi has advised the non-cooperators not to bequeath their property to their sons. The idea is: why should you burden your son with a sinful load? This is an absurd ideal, at least it was never the Hindu ideal. He seems to imagine that everyone in India after forty-five used to leave his property and go away to the forest.

Disciple: But then what should the no-changer do with his property if he does not give it to his son?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if there is nobody to inherit, then it must go to the Government.

Disciple: But the Government is already sufficiently Satanic and the sin of more property may make it more Satanic.

Disciple: In the hymns recited as flower-offerings—Puspānjali — they pray — Swasti swarajyam, bhojyam, samrajyam-pāramesthyam —“for self-rule, and all rule — of the divine — and all enjoyment.”

Sri Aurobindo: Why! you have to face property if it comes. There never was any preaching of poverty. Of course, there was Sannyasa having the ideal of “no-property”. But that is quite a different thing from remaining poor.

What the Indian ideal is you read in the Ramayana where the civic life is described. There was no man who was poor in Dashratha’s kingdom, none who had no garden. That is the Indian ideal and even in the Upanishads we see that the Brahmins had got wealth.

Sri Aurobindo recounted the story of Yāgnavalkya who said he would bow down to the highest among the knowers of Brahman. He said: “I only want to take the cows.”

Not to be attached to property was the idea, but it is quite a different thing from remaining poor.

Sri Aurobindo: There was a division: the monks and the householders. The monks owned no property and for them there was the communal property. For the householders poverty was not regarded as an ideal. Our people never preached poverty.

Disciple: Even in the Taittiriya and other Upanishads we have annādo annavān, kirtyā mahān, pasubhih saha “The one who enjoys matter-food — and is possessed of Matter (of food), great by his glory, with the wealth of cattle”. — always insistence is on earthly greatness and prosperity.

Sri Aurobindo: Does any one know anything about the Montessori method of child-education?

Disciple: The principle is to base education round the spontaneous activities of the child, i.e., primarily, round its sense-activities which have to be intelligently guided by the teacher. In fact, the child learns, the teacher does not teach in the old sense. Group-life furnishes occasions to inculcate social virtues in the child’s mind. Freedom of the child is the corner-stone of her system. The training centres round child-life by guided activities of the senses, i.e. the nervous system.

Sri Aurobindo: The principle is all right. There are, I believe, three things: To bring out the real man is the first business of education. In the present system it is sorely neglected. It can be done by promoting powers of observation, memory, reasoning etc. Through these the man within must be touched and brought out.

The second thing that acts is the personality of the teacher. Whatever Montessori may say, the teacher is there and his influence is there and it does, and must, act. The teacher may not directly guide or instruct but the influence keeps the children engaged. Children are quite open to such an influence. The third thing is to place a man in the right place in the world.

Disciple: She has also provided for “silence” in her teaching. There is no religious teaching. There are people who object to this method saying that the child must be brought in contact with the past.

Sri Aurobindo: When the real man — the true individual — is brought out, then you can place him in contact with the past. At present information is forced into the child’s brain. The child can very well gather it by himself if his mind is trained. Perfect liberty would be desirable for the child. I would not like any hard things to be brought into the child’s experience. In Japan, it seems, the child is free when it is young and, as it grows and reaches the college, discipline tightens.

Sri Aurobindo: No. The Japanese are more naturally disciplined. I mean they take to discipline very easily.

The question at the evening-talk arose out of the convocation address delivered by Dr. Brajendra Nath Seal.

Disciple: Frankly I could not go through the address because of its heaviness and also too much “internationalism”.

Disciple: Y read a long sentence to me out of the address and then stopped half-way for breath!

Sri Aurobindo: That way, somebody can even say the same thing with regard to the Arya, because there are long sentences there also.

Disciple: Some one told me that there was a striking resemblance between your style and that of Brajendra Nath Seal.

Disciple: When I read the first article of the Arya I could not understand anything, so I gave it up.

Sri Aurobindo: Many people cannot understand it. The Arya requires two things. First of all, a thorough knowledge of the English language which many Indians have not got. And secondly, it requires a mind that is subtle and comprehensive. I wrote the Arya, really speaking, for myself. I wanted to throw out certain things that were moving in my mind. I did not write it for others and so I did not care to write with that purpose.

Disciple: Even P. Chaudhury says that he does not understand anything of the Arya except the Future Poetry.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not because of the style but because he takes interest in literature and knows something about it. It is his subject.

Sri Aurobindo: Because other things don’t interest him. Do you think he made a serious effort to read it through and failed?

Disciple: I got the Arya in my college and I could never understand anything of it in the day-time. I used to begin at 11 o’clock at night and go up to 12 or 1 o’clock. Then I could understand something of it. It took me a few months to get into the style.

Sri Aurobindo: The difficulty is not merely language and style but thought also. The Arya makes a demand on the mind for acute and original thinking. You can’t expect all men to meet that demand.

Sri Aurobindo: But some Englishmen do understand the

Arya. The Americans too are reading it easily because they understand the language — of course, provided they take interest in the subject.

Disciple: My friend Swami Adwaitananda understands it all right but when I met professors of philosophy at Baroda or Lahore I found them complaining about their inability to understand it. Perhaps, peopli connected with Pondicherry can follow the writing easily.

Sri Aurobindo: Not always. But even the Life Divine is not so difficult, Only, there are some chapters which anybody would find difficult.

Disciple: In his address Dr. Brajendra Nath Seal spe; of the ancient ideal of education.

Disciple: There was “Guru grha vdsa” — living with the Guru and corporate life.

Disciple: Seal says that in ancient times students used to do manual work for the Guru, and they were also living a corporate life — the student community working together for common ends.

Disciple: He wants modern education to be national, international, socialistic etc. I am afraid he tries to read some modern thoughts into the ancient system.

Sri Aurobindo: In very ancient times it was the spiritual building of character which was the aim of education. The Guru was generally a Yogi who put his influence for the growth of the student. Spiritual life was the aim, and its centre was the Veda. Of course, there was also cultural training, but it was not the main thing. For instance, take the case of Satyakama. The method of

teaching was to send him out driving the cows. How does Seal reconcile that with any modern method?

The main basis in India was spiritual in contrast to the Greek ideal of education. In Greece it was intellectual and aesthetic. The Greeks tried to give intellectual training but not through giving information and teaching different subjects. They rather allowed the intellect to grow freely and there was an atmosphere in which these capacities and activities could grow.

In India also, the classical period was much different from the ancient one in its educational system. There is no reason to suppose that the method in India did not change. During this period many subjects were taught and the system was much more elaborate.

Sri Aurobindo: The time of Kalidasa, for instance. You see the subjects women had to study in those days. You will see there were so many arts and accomplishments they had to learn. Then there was a time when Buddhist Universities like Nalanda, Takshashila were in vogue. They were like the Schools in mediaeval Europe.

Sri Aurobindo: It consisted of discussions and general knowledge but the whole system mainly centred round philosophy.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by physical personality? There is the external personality of man which is predominantly physical but there are also the vital and mental parts. The external part of man is that portion which comes out but there is much more behind. Some portion is very near the surface ready for expression, some parts are so hidden that they may not come out in this life. It is the object of yoga to harmonies the different parts in the mental being, in the vital being and the physical being. Then the whole is to be given a harmonious expression; and for that the external personality has to be got over and changed. Some of the elements may remain but they must be transformed.

Sri Aurobindo: That depends on individual case. There is no general rule, In yoga, the external personality is so much changed as to appear quite a different being. Thus when you are transformed by yoga, those who have not seen you for ten years would find it difficult to recognise you.

Disciple: In the external personality there may: be a combination of different personalities.

Sri Aurobindo: In the personality of man there may be mental, vital and physical elements. Man’s personality is mainly physical—the mental and vital are there but generally involved in the physical.

Sri Aurobindo: There are other elements also; the personalities of past lives may be continued with what man creates in the present life.

But it is difficult to distinguish and separate the personalities in men who are not well developed, In such cases all the elements are lumped together, and we say

that the person has no individuality. I call these cases “single-personality”. But in developed men, the personalities can be easily distinguished.

Disciple: Are the contradictions in the character of a man accounted for by the difference in his personalities?

Disciple: For example, Robespierre at, one time could not pass the sentence of death; on a criminal.

Disciple: In C.R. Das there were many personalities: the lawyer, the poet, the politician etc.

Sri Aurobindo: In your article you have said that Das’s speeches were not logical. But in earlier days all his speeches were logical like those of a lawyer. When he entered politics he gave up that habit and that was why he succeeded!

Disciple: There have been persons whose private life is very loose but in political life they are successful.

Sri Aurobindo: What connection is there between morality and greatness? Most great men were immoral. Looseness in private morality arises from a strong vital being, and that strong vital being leads to success in great works. Immorality consists in allowing the vital impulses to go out unchecked. They may arise from strength or from weakness. In case of strength the vital impulses go out by the strength, in case of weakness they go out because they cannot be checked. Self-control, or samyama, does not necessarily require one to be a yogi or a divine man. Asuras exercise control over their vital impulses to conserve energy for great enjoyment.

Those who do not give indulgence to their impulses through weakness or fear of society may be respectable, but I cannot call them pure.

The ordinary idea of morality is the observance

of social law. When Gandhi indulged with his pregnant wife there was nothing immoral in it according to ordinary ideas, but he regards that as immoral!

Most saints have been sinners in the earlier period of their lives — like Bilwamangal.

Sri Aurobindo: No, the fact is that they do not confess their sins. Das was not exactly moral, but he became great.

Disciple: The Puranas state that the span of life is different in different cycles. Is it a fact? For instance, Rama is said to have lived eleven thousand years.

Disciple: It seems so, for his father, Dasharatha, lived for eighty thousand years.

Sri Aurobindo: So Rama was short-lived! (laughter). But what about their statures? There is a story about Revati. Her father wanted to get her married and wished to consult Brahma, the creator, about it. So he went to the Brahma-loka and he was entertained with a song by an Apsara. After the song was over Brahma asked him about the object of his visit. He asked about his daughter’s marriage and suggested certain names. Brahma said all those people had already died! While he was listening to the song some ten thousand human years had passed and all was changed! The father asked Brahma what was to be done. He said: “Well, Krishna and Balaram, and others have gone down — to humanity — you may go and give your daughter to Balaram.” So, Revati was married to Balaram. When she came to Balaram after marriage he looked up to her as she was very much taller

than himself. He said to himself: “How am I to manage this?” He then did one thing; he took his plough and applied it to her shoulder and then pressed down with great force till she was brought down to his size and then they lived happily ever after!

Sri Aurobindo: Probably the poet could not exaggerate in his case as he is historically near us.

Disciple: The poet perhaps knew that we would read these things and so he wanted to be accurate!

Disciple: I want to know whether the incidents related by the poet about Krishna’s life are psychic representations or do they present facts that occurred during his lifetime?

Sri Aurobindo: From the reading of the description itself you can know whether the act of killing is a physical fact or not. You can’t take everything physically. There is a mixture of facts, tradition and psychic experience as well as history.

Disciple: How did the poet get them? Did he get them by psychic intuition or from the physical life only?

Sri Aurobindo: You can’t take these things so literally and scientifically. The poet was not writing history, he was only writing poetry. He may have got his materials from the psychic intuitive plane, and from his own imagination, or from the psycho-mental or any other plane.

Disciple: I have a question. The poet describes the form of Sri Krishna. Now, is it the description of his psychic body or his physical body — because we see that form of his in our own psychic vision even today. T

Sri Aurobindo: What on earth does it matter whether he

lived on the physical plane or not? If the thing is true pn the psychic and spiritual plane it is all that matters. As long as you find Krishna as a divine Power on the psychic, or on the spiritual plane nothing else matters. He is true for us. The physical is merely the shadow of the psychic.

Disciple: Today our friend asked me again about the Christian and Hindu visions. He was at a loss to understand why, if Truth is one, men should get different visions. All must get the same experience if the thing is true.

Sri Aurobindo: As if the world was so poor as not to be able to give different visions on the same plane.

Disciple: Whenever the Avatar — the incarnation — comes, does he not undergo a period of Sadhana to make it possible for humanity to attain a higher consciousness?

Disciple: In the Bhdgawata Krishna is represented as a Purna Avatar — as manifesting full knowledge, power and delight, even from his childhood. Had he done any Sadhana?

Sri Aurobindo: The Bhagawata is a book of religion, it is not history. Even the Mahdbhdrata is not history. It is poetry, legend and tradition all woven into poetry, all arranged round certain facts.

But that apart, the question is: do all Avatars come to raise the consciousness of humanity? Those that come to do that work practise sddhana.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he seems to have done Sadhana with Ghora Rishi. But the Varaha incarnation does not seem to have done any Sadhana. (Laughter)

Disciple: An Avatar embodying the Saccidānanda,— Divine knowledge, infinite power and delight etc.,— on the physical plane.

Sri Aurobindo: For instance, Tailanga Swamy’s remaining in water, would you call it mastery of the physical? Power to work miracles,— does it not constitute the Supramentalised physical?

Disciple: I want to know if this yoga has been tried before. Did anyone bring down the Truth to the material plane?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course there is no evidence. If any one did it in the past we need not be doing it and struggling as we do. It is obvious it was not done in the past.

Sri Aurobindo: That way, nothing is done for which there has not been a previous trial and preparation; whatever is done has been tried with partial success before. If anyone did it, it was lost by tradition and forgotten in the cycles of time.

Disciple: Is it not possible that the Truth may have come down and then receded?

Sri Aurobindo: If an Avatar came it was a promise. The Truth was not made a fact in Matter. I can say this that it may have been tried but it was never made dynamic factor in the world. The difficulty in bringing down the Truth is not so much in the upper physical layers but in gross Matter, in the most material plane.

The earth-law has to be changed and a new atmosphere is to be created. The question is not merely to have knowledge, power etc., but to bring it down, the whole difficulty is to make it flow down.

People have very simple ideas about this thing, but it is not so simple as it is thought. It is a very complex movement. There is the Truth above and when you go on increasing in knowledge you go on ascending higher and higher, but it does not descend, does not come down at once. It comes down only when everything is ready. If the Truth could be made once the law of the earth-plane then it would endure. It is difficult to make it flow down so long as there is a mixed movement.

Sri Aurobindo: I know that it can be done, but I can’t prophesy: I cannot say, “It will be done.” But this I can say: “Something will be done this time.”

There is a doubt somewhere in the mental being, some uncertainty. The whole thing is ready behind. If there had been the certainty on the mental plane the work would have been done. It was not done till now because probably the hostile forces were very strong. You do not know how strong they are, I alone know it, you have only a glimpse of it.

Disciple: Dr. Coué in his book of cure by auto-suggestion wants that people should use “imagination” and not “will” for auto-suggestion because he thinks that by using the will you exhaust yourself.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he holds that the will creates opposition but the same is the case with imagination. Whatever you do sets up forces in opposition in movement.

Disciple: To me the distinction he draws between imagination and will is not clear.

Sri Aurobindo: In the imagination you say, “I am all right” and go on repeating it while in using the will you say; “I must be all right”!

Disciple: One Indian wine merchant was photographed and he was found to emit blue light!

Sri Aurobindo: This kind of emission of light-waves from a human body is a proved fact. The scientists went and found the light waves but then they thought that they were hypnotised and so they tried the photographic plate and found the photo of a hand. These phenomena like the eyeless sight, or emission of light waves or cures by occult powers are mostly “psychic” phenomena. It is absurd to try to explain them away and still more absurd to doubt them.

Disciple: A missionary, it seems, has cured a blind man; and St. Xavier at Goa still cures many people of their diseases.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a very common thing. In France at the Notre Dame several lame people were immediately cured. These cases can be seen by anybody who wants to be convinced about their existence. Only the forces, in such case, work very irregularly. Some people get cured absolutely, while others are not affected. A friend of the Mother, a lady, was lame and got cured at

Notre Dame. These effects are due to certain “psychic” powers and there is no limit to their capacity.

There are cases where doctors treating their patients cure them by the use of “psychic” powers, though the men using the powers do not understand the process by their intellect.

The topic was changed as a disciple brought in news about the elections going on in Pondicherry.

Sri Aurobindo: The main duty of all these deputies seems to be the taking and giving of bribes. We have here a very fine object lesson in democracy. If I had not come to Pondicherry, perhaps, I would not have lost all my faith in democracy.

Disciple: They are acting like the Fascists who also keep out all the opposition candidates and use force. But why do they beat and kill each other?

Sri Aurobindo: You have got a majority and so you thrash with the consent of the majority!

Sri Aurobindo: There is no special significance; these things have been there for a long time.

Sri Aurobindo: They have been there — the earthquakes etc. for twenty thousand years. They are not new. Japan is a country of wooden houses and a Japanese goes to sleep dressed so that he can jump out at the first sign of danger. The Japanese are accustomed to keep their most precious possessions at one place. So if there is fire or earthquake, he simply runs out with them and then builds the house over again.

They are accustomed to live dangerously. Only recently they have begun to introduce the American style and stone buildings have been constructed. But that has brought disastrous consequences. The whole city of Yokohama is practically destroyed.

Disciple: It is now a heap of ruins. But their population is increasing so rapidly that the loss of life due to earthquake may be nothing to them.

Sri Aurobindo: Formerly also there were such earthquakes but they were not so disastrous. Besides, electricity and waterworks and other such installations add to the danger. They have been trying to use reinforced concrete and they believe it may serve the purpose. The Japanese have reduced their infant mortality to the minimum. Moreover, they are a very hygienic people — they are the cleanest people in the world.

Disciple: In Ahmedabad the Sanitary Committee took the Municipal staff and some volunteers and have cleaned up one of the biggest, narrowest and most thickly populated localities — Mandwi. It took them more than three days. At the end lectures were given about the necessity and means of keeping the locality clean. The proposal is to clear the whole city gradually.

Disciple: When the Sanitary Committee has gone to one end of the city it may find that the other end it has left has become again as filthy as it was.

Disciple: If public opinion is cultivated and the sanitary consciousness awakened then after such efforts legislation may be passed to maintain cleanliness.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, these things require vital energy. In a nation like ours which has got vital depression such an effort is necessary and good as it brings it out from the Tamas — inertia — into which it has fallen.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. If you are subject to vital depression you will be unable to do a work of the physical plane with an alert mind for a long time.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not what I mean by getting rid of vital depression. I mean doing something on the physical plane, not necessarily physical work alone — regularly at the same time without fail with an alert mind, and feeling no fatigue or mental apathy and seeing that it is done well without any mistake or carelessness.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not what is wanted. One must be alert in the mind. The Europeans succeed in their work because they have that habit of alert mind.

Disciple: I showed X how to prepare Halwa and do it every day in ten minutes. Then he began to argue that he was not accustomed to do it! And then to say that it was difficult to do it every day! But the joke is that at last he told me: “You see, it is not our work!” (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: (turning to a disciple) I spoke to the Mother about the theory that thumb lines do undergo change. She confirms the belief of our palmists — the sāmudriks — that the rekhās — lines — on the palm change. There are several judicial errors — well-known — in which thumb-impressions have been proved false.

There was the famous case of an army-man who was charged with having accepted bribes from the Germans. The case was tried by various courts and at last the man was acquitted. When the prosecution produced the thumb-impression, the judge refused to give any importance to it saying it was a scrap of paper. There was a discussion in the French Assembly about the thumb-impression to be introduced for foreigners in France. The counter proposal was that as it was humiliating they ought not to introduce it, as they would not want to give it themselves.

Disciple: Some time back you said that the symbolism of the Vedas was to some extent conventional e.g. typifying “light of the Truth” as the “cow”. The same may be said of Buddhist symbolism and that of ancient Egypt.

Is there not a symbolism which could be said to be universal, i.e. having a reality independent of the mental significance of words and images?

Disciple: If at all such a symbolism exists it ought to be based on true correspondence between the planes of consciousness, and the symbols themselves must be universal. The numbers are said to form such a symbolism; for, though mental, they have correspondence on each plane of being, e.g. 2 corresponds to the ends of polarity — sex — male and female, positive and negative, attraction and repulsion, good and evil etc. 4 corresponds to will and creative action; 7 is said to represent individual consciousness contacting the universe, unfolding its powers; 8 is related to Karma; 9 is related to life and cyclic evolution.

Has this idea of symbolism of numbers any true foundation? Or, in other words, do there exist realities which are true symbols? Numbers seem to have special properties seemingly self-existent, absolute and changeless, ruling the whole manifestation. Perhaps it is this that made Pythagoras and many other mystics see in numbers the highest abstract images of the laws of being?

Sri Aurobindo: What is your idea of the difference between the symbol and Reality?

Disciple: A symbol is a significant form of a plane of being which presents to the human mind Reality belonging to another plane e.g. the flag of a nation.

Sri Aurobindo: In a sense everything here, on this earth-plane is symbolic of something that is beyond the physical plane. Our bodies, the vital being, the mental being are all a symbol — they are a whole range of symbols.

There are authentic symbols like the Vedic “cow” which means “Light” and the quadruped of that name. It was something precious to the Aryan people and it was taken away by the robbers. The Rishis gave life to this symbol; form was given by their mind, and it became an experience.

There are people who say “cow” should not mean “Light”. But what can “herds of the Sun” mean? It can only mean “Rays of solar light”. There are certain life-symbols: e.g. “Mountain” stands for “ascent”, going high up. “Bridge” or “crossing of rivers” is also a symbol from life-surroundings.

Then there are certain symbols that have an inherent appositeness of their own: for instance, Akasha-sky stands for the Eternal Brahman. In any nationality or any culture, “Sky” always indicates the Infinite. “Sun” always stands for the Supramental Light — it is the Sun of knowledge.

Then there are mental symbols; once fixed they become active on their own plane, e.g. “OM”,— Numbers, alphabets, geometrical figures — these have their own interpretations, e.g., the square always indicates to me the Supermind: it is a perfect shape.

Sri Aurobindo: It might have been already found on the mental plane by somebody or might have come into my mind by some force. I did not pursue its meaning; it indicated to me the Supermind and I was satisfied.

The triangle indicates the world formed by the three lower powers. Another triangle placed with, its apex opposite indicates the three higher plane of being. When the two triangles are superimposed upon each other then a new symbol is found. The ancients indulged in these speculations.

It is also possible that the same reality may seek expression through different symbols, and if you go behind you find it is the same thing which is Infinite and unlimited by the symbol.

Sri Aurobindo: They are not mere sound, there must be some force behind them. The same is true about Mantra Siddhi: three states are represented by “OM” and they can act differently in different men,

Sri Aurobindo: They are absolute to the human mind only; they are essential for our way of perceiving. There may be another plane of consciousness where they may not be so absolute, and where “one” may be at the same time “two”.

Numbers are the way of perceiving certain unalterable facts on the physical plane. It means that the mind can cut up the Infinite, take one and one and one and then say about each: “this is one”. Physically, there are certain unalterable laws, e.g., going through the door is not possible without opening it, but the contrary of it may exist elsewhere.

Disciple: In a new geometry there are different postulates and axioms — not the same that we find in ordinary geometry.

Disciple: Nowadays all can be included in geometry. There exist Imaginary Numbers: e.g., the square root of minus 1. It is an imaginary number which the mind cannot conceive and represent in some substance, but yet it indicates some reality.

Sri Aurobindo: What is minus 1? It is a number which goes beyond our gamut like sound-waves which we can’t hear yet exist all the same. Our range deals with the positive numbers while the negative ones are contrary to it. It does not mean they don’t exist. They can even make themselves known to the mind.

(To a Disciple) Do you feel that you are one being? And yet are you quite sure that there is no other personality in you? So you feel you are one body but at the same time multiple personalities are there in you. There are positive personalities in you, but there may be negative personalities also! You have then a negative number! There is an interpenetration of one by another and a sort of fluidity which makes this possible. But if it was so on the physical plane then one could not deal with physical realities.

Disciple: It is said that the life of man is ruled by the stars — is this a kind of symbolism or is it true?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not completely true that man’s life is governed by the stars. The conjunctions of the stars are an indication of the forces, especially vital and physical forces. They exert a certain influence on man and the course of his life. It was, perhaps, the Chaldean occultists who found the inner basis of these calculations. Now, only tradition remains. Astrology is not yet an exact science; it is not purely mental. It is the man whose mind can touch the forces that are behind the stars who can make correct predictions. What is important for man is the inner life and on that the stars have little influence.

Disciple: There are two ways of foretelling the future: the astrological calculations which are based upon the

general lines of character and happenings indicated by the stars, another is that of clairvoyance in which the image of the future event, correct even to the minutest detail, is brought before the vision. How does this happen?

Sri Aurobindo: These clairvoyants are awake on the physical plane and because they are passive these images which are already there in the subtle impose themselves upon their vision; of course, you must have this vision in order to know the future.

Disciple: Can the events, thus foreseen, be averted? Generally, there is something always missing in the vision which does not allow men to escape it, e.g., the, place or the time of the event is not indicated etc. But there are some instances in which the foreknowledge of the event has allowed the man to change the result foreseen.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a vital image which is a possibility and it can be prevented; secondly there is the image of the event on the subtle physical plane which, if it is fixed, can’t be avoided.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there are. If you want to change then you have to go to a plane which is higher than the one where these things are decided and that is not always easy.

There are three kinds of movements which one has to distinguish in seeing the future. First of all there is the result of the actualities: it is a very narrow field and things there are fixed and it is generally the very near future. Secondly, there is a play of potentialities in which certain forces are struggling and you can see the force which is most likely to succeed. But generally it is that force which represents the higher

decision on that plane. But you can’t be always sure that it will succeed unless you know definitely that it represents the highest decision — the Truth. Thirdly there is a higher plane where important decisions are made. For that movement you have to go very high. It is difficult to distinguish between these three and most of the clairvoyants make a confusion.

Disciple: There are cases where most minute details have been known by clairvoyance.

Sri Aurobindo: One has to be passive and often the decision to be taken, or the happening that is going to take place, forces itself upon one.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But it is much easier to see the past. The impression and memory are left on so many things.

Disciple: Is it the same thing that A.E. speaks of as the “earth-memory” in one of his books.

Disciple: All things leave their impression in the world and they are all stored up in earth-consciousness. When A.E. was travelling in Egypt he saw much of the history of Egypt in the subtle.

Disciple: There is a being or a Spirit behind every place, I believe; for instance, is there no conscious being behind Pondicherry?

Sri Aurobindo: It is true that there are beings behind collective units, like the nations. There is what you may call the national devata or National Shakti.

Disciple: Is it possible to know the future of the nation by coming in contact with this being?

Sri Aurobindo: It has a part to play in it. It controls some of the forces that act.

Sri Aurobindo: It has the aggregate consciousness and it has an individualised consciousness of its own. It is not the determining deity or the adhisthāta devatā in the sense that it entirely shapes the future, but it, in a way, represents the racial — the national — soul.

Sri Aurobindo: This idea is akin to the Christian conception of good and evil always counterbalancing each other and it corresponds to the old idea of good and evil Spirits. But there is no such rule that wherever there is a good Spirit there must be the evil Spirit.

The subject was miracles or acts that appear extra-ordinary in the life of great spiritual persons. Raman Maharshi, the great Yogi of Tiruvannamalai, was once beaten severely by robbers. They thought that he had a lot of money hidden somewhere but as they failed to locate it they caught him and beat him. At last they found only

utensils, which they started taking. Raman Maharshi told them, “But why don’t you take some food which is ready, and then take the utensils?” They did not listen to him and beat him. He fell into Samadhi and his limbs were swollen with the beating. The police caught the burglars and brought them before Raman Maharshi for identification, but he refused to identify them.

Disciple: There is a story about Tailanga Swami, that once he was beaten by robbers and the marks of the beating were found on the body of the son of a robber.

Disciple: No. That version is not correct. The story is that a prince was coming to take a bath in the Ganges with his two queens and so a portion of the road leading to the bathing-ghat was screened off to conduct the Ranis to the river in purdāh — under veil. When they were bathing, Tailanga Swami, who used to remain in the Ganges submerged for days together, suddenly appeared on the surface of water and the King whipped him mercilessly. When he went he found that marks of the beating on his son’s body.

Disciple: Ramakrishna also had a similar experience when the bullock that was being driven by the gardener was whipped in spite Ramakrishna’s protest; the marks of the whip were reproduced on Ramakrishna’s body

Disciple: The story in the Ramakrishna Kathamrita is different. It refers to two fishermen who were quarrelling. One of them gave a slap to the other on the back and Ramakrishna who was on the bank got the mark of the slap on his body.

Sri Aurobindo: All these stories are there, the question is how many of them are true.

Sri Aurobindo: I have already told you “anything is possible”,

because the power of self-suggestion is practically unlimited. There is the instance of St. Francis, of Assisi on whose body the marks of the crucifixion were reproduced merely by the power of auto-suggestion. Well; if you have a stronger power than that, you can immediately feel any marks on your body. Ramakrishna himself seems to have said that when he was doing Hanuman Sadhana, he grew a little tail.

Disciple: He also said that when he was living in śakti-bhāva, the Radha attitude, he developed feminine characteristics on his body

Disciple: But it is also said that you had the power of raising the body from the ground!

Disciple: They say that when you were in jail and also at Pondicherry when you used to meditate your body used to be lifted from the ground.

Sri Aurobindo: Nonsense. And in X’s writings perhaps I am represented as walking above the ground. So you see how legends gather?

Disciple: But you yourself told me that it is true and not nonsense. I asked you one day whether it was possible to raise the body from the ground. You said it was and so I thought it was true in your case.

Sri Aurobindo: There you are! If I say something is possible does it follow that it is actually done; for example, if I say it is possible to attain physical immortality, does it mean that I have achieved it? Not at all.

Disciple: But then is there no basis at all for this widely held report? I have heard it from reliable men.

Disciple: Those who start legends generally say they heard it from a reliable source.

Disciple: But when you were in jail some part of your body was raised in a peculiar fashion. Is that not true?

Sri Aurobindo: That was once in jail, I was then having a

very intense Sadhana on the vital plane and I was concentrated. I had a questioning mood, whether such things as the Siddhi of utthapana — levitation — were possible. Then suddenly I found myself raised up in such a way I could not have done it myself with muscular exertion: only one part of the body was slightly in contact with the ground and the rest was raised up against the wall and I know I could not have held my body like that normally even if I had wanted to. I also found that the body remained suspended like that without any exertion on my part. That is the only thing that happened. In jail there were many such extraordinary and, one may say, abnormal, experiences. As I was doing the Sadhana on the vital plane I think the power might have come from there. All these experiences passed away and did not repeat themselves.

Disciple: Moti Babu has related that when you were five years old you got a vision of a great light at Darjeeling and you became unconscious.

Sri Aurobindo: And then, what happened further? (After some time) All that is a legend. I told him something because he was constantly asking me about my childhood. I had no such experience of light when I was a child. My uncle told me that I was very bright, but I have no recollection of those days and if you want the truth it was not light but darkness that I saw at Darjeeling. I was lying down one day when I saw suddenly a great darkness rushing into me and enveloping me and the whole of the universe. What I told Moti Babu was that after that I had a great Tamas — darkness — always hanging on to me all along my stay in England. I believe that darkness had something to do with the Tamas that came upon me. It left me only when I was coming back to India.

If people were to know all the truth about my life they would never believe that such a man could come to anything.

Disciple: Moti Babu related to me about your conversion to Christianity — how one day when you did no attend Church the priest asked you about it next day and then you did not make any reply but simply wept.

Sri Aurobindo: What is all this legend? I never became a Christian and never used to go to Church. Who has built up this fantastic story?

Sri Aurobindo: I told him something quite different and the manuscript which he sent here did not contain any account of the light I saw when I was five!

The only thing that happened was there was once a meeting of non-Conformist priests at Camberland when we were staying in England. The old lady in whose house we were living took me there. In such meeting after the prayers are over all disperse and devout people generally remain a little longer afterwards and it is at that time that conversions are made.

I was feeling completely bored. Then a priest approached me and put me some questions. I did not give any reply. Then they all shouted out, “He is saved, he is saved,” and began to pray for me and offer thanks to God! I did not know anything. Then the priest came to me and asked me to pray. I was never in the habit of praying but somehow I did it in the manner in which children recite their prayers before sleep, in order to keep up an appearance. That was the only thing. But I did not use to attend Church. I was then about ten years. The old lady’s son, Mr. Drewett never used to meddle in these affairs because he was a man of common sense. But he went away to Australia and we came to India.

When we were staying in London this old lady used to have daily family prayers and reading of some passage from the Bible. One day Mano Mohan said something about Moses which made her wild. She said she did not want to live under the same roof with unbelievers, and went to live somewhere else. I felt infinitely relieved and grateful to Mano Mohan. We were then entering upon the agnostic stage in our development.

I was a great coward virtually and I was weak physically and could not do anything. Only my will was bright. Nobody could have imagined that I could face the gallows or carry on a revolutionary movement. In my case it was all human imperfection with which I had to start and feel all the difficulties before embodying the divine Consciousness.

Disciple: Moti Babu told us that you caught the revolutionary spirit from Shelley’s Revolt of Islam.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not quite true. The Revolt of Islam was a great favourite with me even when I was quite young and I used to read it again and again — of course, without understanding everything. Evidently it appealed to some part of the being. There was no other effect of reading it except this that I had a thought that I would dedicate my life to a similar World-change and take part in it.

I remember only three experiences. One was the Darjeeling experience. And the second came upon me at the age of twelve or thirteen. I was extremely selfish and then something came upon me and I felt I ought to give up selfishness and I tried in my own way — of course, imperfectly — to put it into practice. But

that was a sort of turning-point in my inner life. The last came just before I left England. It was the mental rather than the spiritual experience of the Atman. I felt the One only as true; it was an experience absolutely Shankarite in its sense. It lasted only for a short time.

Disciple: Is it a fact that you came away straight to Chandernagore from the Dharma office? And that the C.I.D. by God’s grace were not there?

Sri Aurobindo: I was at the Karmayogin office and we came to know about the search that was going to be made evidently with the object of arresting me. There were some people there and Ramchandra Majumdar was there — preparing to give fight to the police — and so many ideas were flying about when suddenly I heard a voice from above saying, “No, go to Chandernagore.”

After coming out from Jail I used to hear voices and in those days I used to obey them without questioning. So I told my friends that I would go to French India and then the arrangement was made. The C.I.D., I don’t know whether by God’s grace or the prostitutes’ grace, were not there.

Disciple: Is there any truth in the belief that the three times prescribed for the sandhya are more favourable for meditation?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they are. These transitional times — especially the evening times — are times when you

are most likely to be attacked by the hostile powers.

Disciple: Is there no time which gives one the greatest immunity from these attacks?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think there is any such time; if you are open to them you can be always attacked and more so at these sandhyas — transitional times.

Disciple: There is an idea that the bright half of the lunar month is more favourable to Sadhana than the dark half.

Sri Aurobindo: I say that if you accept their suggestion and want it to come true the powers that are trying to materialise them may succeed.

Disciple: I had an experience which is unforgettable. I started from when my head struck against the door, and people asked me not to go. I did not mind their advice and went. The train by which I started collided with another train and many people died and I had a narrow escape.

Sri Aurobindo: Did all the people who started for the same train get a knock on their heads? And in spite of the knock you did escape!

Disciple: My father one day suddenly got up from sleep and asked me at the dead of night to get away saying that the house was going to collapse. He dragged me out and the moment we were out of the verandah a portion of the house collapsed.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not an omen, it is a premonition. Many people get that sort of intimation. You can always get it provided you are open to it in the subconscious

and you allow it to come up to the surface in the conscious being.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Man is surrounded by these small physico-vital beings and some of them take a great interest in man. They know the near, the immediate future, what is just going to happen. They can intimate it to you if you are open.

Sri Aurobindo: Ghosts are spirits of dead people, while “spirit” is a general term.

Disciple: I had fear of ghosts; when I knew there were no ghosts my fear disappeared.

Sri Aurobindo: On the contrary, my fear went away when I knew that there were ghosts!

Disciple: Where does fear come from? Some say it is a function of the spleen as anger is due to the liver.

Sri Aurobindo: Really speaking, fear is in the vital being. When you have thrown it away from your mind am other parts of your being you can see it still passing through you, below the navel. There is a connection between fear and your intestines.

Disciple: Telepathic capacities of the high-class Hindus is due to their pineal gland being twice as developed as that of Europeans. Because of this development they receive telepathic communications more easily than other people.

Sri Aurobindo: It was supposed to have something to do with the circulation of blood. Where is it situated?

Sri Aurobindo: The truth is that these parts act as receiving channels for a higher activity. For instance, now it is well known that the seat of thought is not the brain. The brain is only the communicating channel.

Sri Aurobindo: Work can be done in many ways. For instance, I can create a row in India through communal organisation — without giving lectures, or writing in the press. Once the Yogic power is there you can do many things. But the question is whether a particular activity is in keeping with the movement of the Truth. That is quite another matter. One has to see to it that one acts according to the Truth.

Then the question about building a greater India founded upon the Truth was put to Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: I have no such ambition. My ambition is to bring down this Truth into the world and I don’t think its sphere would be confined to India. India may be the starting-point but it would act on the whole of humanity.

As to the nature of the work to be done for the world, I don’t want to speak now. It is best to leave it to be done at the proper time. But it is the Truth that has to come down and show the form that the work must take. Whatever form it may take, ours is only to be fit instruments for the manifestation of the Truth.

Sri Aurobindo: It is quite wrong to say that it is we. If India wants to make itself it is its own business. No one can make a whole nation.

It may be that when the forces are quite in readiness a man may appear who may have to embody the Spirit of the times in himself and so one may feel that he has made the nation. But really speaking it is the nation that has to make itself. It is not like X making the cake; you can’t make a nation that way. Nations and such other living entities must grow — they have to grow just as any other living thing grows. No one makes them.

If a greater India is to arise it means, for us at least, that it should be in the image of the Truth we are trying to bring down. In that case, if it succeeds the Truth itself will create its own forms and then it would not be correct to say that we have created the form, because in any case the Truth that we are trying to bring down is greater than ourselves,

There was a reference to Egypt, and the question was: what do the pyramids and the Sphinx stand for.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know the details about them. Bu evidently the pyramids and the Sphinx must have been connected with the ancient Egyptian religion and occultism. The Egyptians seem to have developed the occult knowledge to a very great extent and it was a dynamic element with them. But as for spiritual knowledge, I don’t think they had very much.

Sri Aurobindo: The Egyptians believed that there was a personality of the vital being that remained attached to the body and the idea in preserving the dead body was perhaps that the person might be able to take up the body again or to return to the earth plane.

Disciple: If this work of bringing down the Truth does not succeed in India, do you think India will lose the chance for ever?

Sri Aurobindo: India has the greatest chance because of her past and because the spiritual force is accumulated here. The real movement is from Above — the Truth trying to come down. Then there is a general upheaval and vague feeling of the Truth coming down — the idea of Avatars, a general questioning of all sorts of idea — and also perversions of the same Truth. But all is due to that movement from Above.

But if India remains indifferent and sticks to old worn — out forms and refuses to move forward, or listen to the call of her soul, then the Truth may recede and try somewhere else. The Truth is not confined to India, it is not India’s property. But there is very little chance of its succeeding elsewhere if it fails in India. It may make an unsuccessful, or partially successful, effort somewhere else, like Christianity, and then retire.

Disciple: One Mr. Sharma, president of the Spiritualist Society in India, says that spirit-communication is

not only possible but probable. There are also table-rapping seances in which spirits are said to reply to questions. What is the truth behind these thing?

Sri Aurobindo: Generally, no spirits come from outside. The will of the medium and of the men participating creates a force which brings about the manifestation. The answers generally are from the minds of men who are present. They come from the subconscious mind as also from the subliminal mind which knows many more things than men are aware of. The concentration of men produces the necessary atmosphere, as I said. Genuine cases of intervention — spirits from outside — are very rare. Dead persons can communicate with the living if they feel interested in life, or in men, and are sufficiently near. The Mother knows of these seances. She could make a table move across a room by her force.

But the idea that all sorts of departed persons are hanging about for centuries and respond to table-rapping is ridiculously absurd.

Disciple: There are cases where persons who are dead have informed their friends or relations. Also there are cases of possession by the spirits of dead persons.

Sri Aurobindo: Persons while dying may create thought-forms which can appear before relatives who are at a distance. Also dying persons may leave behind influences which may be taken up by vital beings and used. That would explain genuine cases of obsession or possession by the ghost of departed persons.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a very complicated thing; if it can take possession at birth it may appear in a human body.

Disciple: Yesterday you said about a table being moved across the room. Such an obvious physical effect you said could be produced by will-power.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not exactly will-power — that is only a way of saying. Of course, the power represents itself as will-power to the mind. The will is there as a controlling agent, but really it is a form of vital energy. You can say it is the kinetic vital energy, It can produce a physical effect if it is strong enough and can lay hold on the vital-physical being. It is really the vital-physical that lays hold on the material object and deals with it.

Disciple: One can understand a case in which there is intervention of another physical mind, say in the case of mesmerism.

Sri Aurobindo: In mesmerism one uses the same energy. If one has sufficient force the same can be used to work directly on an object.

Sri Aurobindo: I was not speaking of these powers on the vital plane, I was speaking of the Supermind. It is a force like electricity, only, it acts in a different way and under different conditions. In these spirit-communications certain conditions are generally created in the atmosphere which acts as the carrier of the force and makes it effective.

Disciple: When a man leaves his body, does his soul assume another birth at once?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on what you mean by the “body” and by the “soul”.

Disciple: It is said that the soul has to take another physical life in order to complete its evolution.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by “evolution” of the soul? If you mean by the “soul” the essential self then it requires no evolution.

Sri Aurobindo: Your question seems to imply that the physical manifestation is the whole manifestation. The body is merely a circumstance in the manifestation of the soul. What we mean by a world or a plane is a status of consciousness. What is then the meaning of “going”? The soul has not to travel through any space, it only goes to another status of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: Again, what do you mean by “departing”? It only goes to another status of consciousness as I said.

Disciple: In our country the belief is that the soul after the man’s death remains in a certain condition and as

it cannot complete its evolution there it has to return to human life. The question is: how is this done?

Sri Aurobindo: As I said, in the essential Self there is nq development, no evolution.

Disciple: In the Chhandogya Upanlshad it is said that th departed soul comes down in the form of rain and then enters plant life and is born through women

Sri Aurobindo: Do you mean to say that whenever it rain so many souls are pouring down? (laughter)

Disciple: It seems there are two purposes for which the souls descend into human birth. Perfected souls come down with the Avatar—the Incarnation—to take part in the Lila and help the world with him.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not the ordinary birth. But the question can be why there is birth at all. It is as good as asking: why was the world created? Or you can ask: why are you and I here even though we are divine,—and, in a sense, perfect? We can only say that the soul assumes birth in order to manifest divine perfection, to manifest the Divine in life. That is all we can say.

Disciple: One part of the question was about the machinery of rebirth, if I may put it that way.

Sri Aurobindo: There are two things: the body and the soul. The body is an ordinary formation and I suppose you know what science says about the composition of Matter. It is all a play of atoms and they can be resolved into electrons and the electrons are formations of certain forces in the physical world. Then you come to the vital body. That is a formation from the vital world and then you have the mental body which is again a formation from the mental world. Similarly, the psychic being is also formed. I leave side other minor divisions of the being. This is only

a rough outline. If you want to go into details, the physical alone has five planes and so on in other parts. Then you come to the Soul. Ordinarily the Soul is not understood as the Jiva. “Soul” does not denote the essential personality which is eternally one with the Divine and is always in the presence of God. So also “Soul” does not mean Atman, the Self, because for this Self there is no evolution. What is generally understood by the Soul is the psychic and mental individualisation which persists even after the dissolution of the physical body and the vital sheath.

Now, when a man dies his physical body dissolves, the vital body dissolves after some time and the psychic and the mental bodies also dissolve. Take the case of an insect. In the insect there is only the physical consciousness and nothing else. Other formations in the universal are too low to be considered. The insect gathers certain experiences on the physical plane. My own view is that it does not go on developing from plane to plane without a supporting Self. So that it is not as if it was developing from plane to plane and ultimately culminating into a Soul. The Soul, the Self, is already there. The Soul (suksma dehi) living on the physical plane returns to the Jiva which is all along supporting the insect in the physical consciousness. When it is ripe, it is taken up on the vital plane and there it gathers experience till the mental plane is reached in man. There is the Supramental plane also.

What we do in our yoga is to bring down the Supramental plane so that the Soul may return with the full experience to the higher plane. The question is how far we can Supramentalise. If we can Supramentalise the mind and the vital being we can return with the memory of that experience and also with that ready formation in another manifestation.

One can preserve, if he so chooses, his vital body after death and produce effects on the vital plane.

Now suppose we Supramentalise the body. In that case we can carry the full physical experience and return with the fullest physical, vital and mental force and manifest the Divine. That is what happens in the case of Avatars and Vibhutis,— there is full memory of the past vital and mental experience and in the case of the Avatar even of the physical experience. If we can Supramentalise the body it can be retained or thrown away at will — icchā-mṛtyu. And even when the body is thrown away, when the process of manifestation is undertaken the Soul has not to gather the physical and the vital and the mental from any of the formations of Universal Nature — as in the case of ordinary souls. In case these are Supramentalised the whole being is quite ready; one has simply to take up the ready formation and manifest the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by “what affords”? It is already there in Nature, as there is electricity, gas etc.

Sri Aurobindo: The Universal Divine has projected the Universe and there is Universal Nature which affords all the material for us. Essentially, everything in Nature corresponds to something in the Universal Soul. For instance, the vital corresponds to the divine Tapas.

The details about the law and the process of rebirth are too complex to be given exactly. It is a complicated question.

Sri Aurobindo sat watching a spider round the electric lamp busily preparing its web as it found a lot of moths flying around the light on account of rainy season.

The spider was frantic in its haste to have its web in time, which was being constantly broken by the insects flying about; it could not put in a new thread quickly enough. Somehow it managed to get a sort of net ready by five minutes.

Sri Aurobindo: He has got quite a feast! He is again running to make the web strong. He ties up the moth in a corner and then goes about preparing the web. He knows mathematics!

Then Sri Aurobindo recalled an incident in the Guest House — years ago — when a spider wanted to balance the whole web and it put a grain of sand and finding it too heavy it cut it off and instead put in a straw and found that the balance was all right. “You see, these spiders are very resourceful. They know what they have to do and then they learn by experience and experiment.”

Sri Aurobindo: The vital mind is an impulse first and thought afterwards. It is, you can say, force first and thought afterwards. For instance, desire — if deprived of the element of “desire” — is an impulse or force going out or trying to realise itself.

Sri Aurobindo: There is one Major Hill who is fit to be an inmate of a lunatic asylum. He has invited Mahatma Gandhi to the Society of Psycho-Analysts and explained to him how the Hindu-Muslim problem is merely a problem of a complex. It is due to cow-complex. (laughter). The Major said further: “If you want to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity you must change the symbol to something else than the cow! Then there would be no problem.”

Disciple: I read an article by a biological analyst or psycho-biologist, perhaps, in which the divorce between Kamal

pasha and his wife was explained. It said Mrs. Kamal had a great love for her parents, she did not love her husband. Secondly, she had in her the masculine complex which made her a suffragist. The writer also explained how Napoleon divorced Josephine because he loved his mother and Queen Elizabeth had a masculine complex but those who came in contact with her had not the feminine complex in them strong enough to keep her to them. He even says that Mahatma Gandhi has a complex! One never can know what is this complex business!

Sri Aurobindo: All that I know about it is that when you repress something in your nature it goes down into the subconscious. But this generalisation that all you do is due to complexes is quite new.

Sri Aurobindo: No. The old European psychology had nothing in it. The new psychology has something, but it is false.

Sri Aurobindo: It is an advance in the sense I mentioned that the old had nothing whereas this new one has something which is false.

The Europeans have got a fixed idea about these sciences. They observe some abnormal phenomena, study them, find out a general law and then try to apply it everywhere. Napoleon, Elizabeth, Begum Samru all behaved in particular ways because they had complexes. It means that a man has a certain character and his actions are determined by that character. This we knew ten thousand years back. There is nothing new in it.

The difficulty is that they want to work in psychology in the same way that they work in physics. But psychology is not so simple. You can’t generalise in it

as you can with matter. It is very subtle, and one has to take into account many factors.

If you say that everything we do produces an influence on our inner being and leaves an influence there, and conversely, that whatever is within us in the subconscious does influence our actions to some extent — that is all right. But more than that is not tenable. Take their theory of dreams. It is perfectly true that dreams are due to something from the subconscious rising up during sleep in an irregular and fitful manner. But that does not account for all the dreams. The realm of dreams is very wide. There are other kinds of dreams, not due to the subconscious. Human psychology is very complicated.

Sri Aurobindo: I mean it is false, and inasmuch as it tries to work on the lines of the physical sciences it is absurd; for, there is no correspondence.

Sri Aurobindo: Theory can never cure anybody. Do you yet believe that a theory cures? Curing people, or getting a certain result, does not depend upon the theory at all. A theory may be true or false and yet you may obtain results from it. A theory simply puts you in a condition when something behind you can work through you. That is the whole stand of Bergson. Theory merely convinces you and thereby produces the necessary inner condition. That is all. It may be true or it may be false. Freud may have cured people as Coué cures them now. But does he cure them by his theory? Not at all; it is because he has some power that people get cured by him.

You may try to apply the results of psycho-analysis

and remove obstacles and complexes from human nature and you will see that they do not succeed.

Sri Aurobindo: With the report of the rats you have also the instance of monkeys crossing a river. It is not mere instinct. The calculation of the height of the tree, formation of the chain and the idea of the breadth of the river, requires mind.

I saw the other day the report of a dog which made friends with a horse. The groom of the horse used to steal from the ration of the horse. Either the horse complained to the dog, or the dog itself came to know about it, but the dog knew about the theft. One day when the man was actually stealing he went to the master and brought him there! The animals seem to act upon 1. Memory, 2. Association, 3. Invention and 4. Adaptation of means to an end.

I believe the animals think with the vital mind while man thinks with the reason.

Sri Aurobindo: They have great vitality. They disturb the whole atmosphere while they are excited and they

throw the vital force around when they are in that state. They have wonderful vitality.

Some one brought in the subject of small — pox and of vaccination and anti — vaccination theory. There was a discussion during which a disciple argued that statistics supported a particular view. Sri Aurobindo in that connection said: “Statistics are not always reliable; they are often deceptive and manipulated to bring about conclusions which men want to draw from them.”

The talk started by a reference to X’s shrinking from fish — which was given to cats — and Y’s shrinking from a meat diet.

Sri Aurobindo: I had myself got that nervous shrinking. I and Bipin Pal once went to Dakshineshwar temple. There a great sacrifice was going on. I stood it all right but Pal was very much moved. I got rid of it completely in jail. Pity and nervous shrinking are weaknesses of the vital being.

Disciple: The question is: what is to be done with bugs? X can stand any number of; them!

Disciple: X’s capacity depends upon the size of the bugs; if they are big he minds them! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: When a thing is to be done then it is kartavyaṃ karma, as you know from the Gita! At that time if I am full of pity it is a weakness. If it is a question of driving out the British, you can’t think of pity at the same time! You can’t think of the loss of jobs of many persons or loss to British commerce.

Shrinking is nervous in its nature, and pity is in the heart. It is an emotion. It has more to do with the psychic being. Pity of the Jains is more intellectual than that of other classes. They have no objection to cruelty if it does not take that particular form which by custom and Sanskara they are made to abhor.

Mahatma’s idea of ahiṃsā does not debar him from inflicting suffering on himself and on others. He does not see that he is responsible for their suffering.

Sri Aurobindo: You can feel it within you. You sense the shrinking. Sensation and feeling are quite different things. Shrinking is primarily in the nervous being while pity is a feeling.

Disciple: At least I felt it so for the moment. But there seems to be a double personality in him.

Sri Aurobindo: This is not a case of double personality in which one is oblivious of the other, for he evidently remembered what he wrote.

Sri Aurobindo: No, the case is that of a being of the vital plane that comes and takes possession of him. It represents itself as myself or the Mother and it is this being that suggests fantastic explanations of my letter to him.

Sri Aurobindo: There are two results possible: 1. either he may go mad, 2. or he may manifest some power and pretend to be a great Avatar. (After a pause) It is easy to fall in this yoga, but it is very difficult to reclimb.

Sri Aurobindo: He had made his body weak in the non co-operation movement by resorting to ascetic practices. But his weakness was not more than what other people have got. His chief defects were in the mental and the vital being. He has a very narrow mental being — practically no mind at all, only conventional ideas about religion and spirituality. But he had a remarkable aspiration and intensity in the vital being. He progressed more than any one. But he had also a great vanity in him and believed that he was someone very special. He aimed at becoming the Superman in the egoistic sense. He then went into a sort of ecstatic devotion, weeping and calling Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in order to pull down the Supermind in one year! He came to such a pass that he lost control of the physical reality and he thought that I was making him do all those things which, in fact, I did not want him to do! He was not able to control his body and used to fall on his feet kneeling when the impulse came. He had an attraction for magical and miraculous things and believed that a yogi must not eat or sleep.

Disciple: Is it possible to have such a control over the universal vital plane as to make it impossible for these

vital forces to represent themselves as the Truth or yourself and the Mother?

Sri Aurobindo: It is a question of consciousness and not of the physical plane where you can prevent somebody from doing something. Nothing is possible without the co-operation of the individual. The difficulty is that he wants to have that being of the vital plane and, even when it is driven out, calls it back.

Sri Aurobindo: When we took away the pressure he felt like an ordinary man, he felt pains in the body. In some cases where the man resists, there are fits and hysteria etc.

Disciple: Why is it that the vital being throws him here — makes him come to Pondicherry?

Sri Aurobindo: There are various beings and they have various tendencies and motives. They are attracted to this place for various reasons, yet they do not want to obey.

Disciple: What is the aim of these beings in taking possession of the human being?

Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, to have influence on the physical plane which they can have by taking possession of a man. Secondly, to play a joke — just to see what happens. Thirdly, to play God and be worshipped. Fourthly, to bring about a manifestation of vital power. To this class belong those beings that effect miraculous cures and have great healing powers. Fifthly, to satisfy some desire or impulse like murder or lust.

From this point of view you will see that capital punishment is absurd. The man who murders was, most probably, under possession of impulse of some being. When the man is executed the being takes possession of another. Many of those who commit murder have admitted that they had their first impulse when they saw an execution.

Some vital beings want to have their play here.

Sri Aurobindo: They get supported. But these are not strong beings. Really strong beings are those that are behind world-movements, like Theosophy; they have not only vital force but mental power.

Sri Aurobindo: They only exhibit power; they do not generally take up a physical body.

Sri Aurobindo: Their idea of progress is increase of power. But they can be converted. Theon — who was the Mother’s instructor in occultism in Algeria — believed that those forces or beings who try to come in touch with the physical are destined to be converted.

Sri Aurobindo: They remain vital beings but instead of aiming at power for themselves and manifesting it egoistically they consent to manifest something higher. They need not take up a body for that. They can remain on their own plane and work here as an influence for a higher life.

Disciple: Does the soul of the man, who is possessed, try to recover the lost ground?

Sri Aurobindo: After some time, during possession, there is no soul; it is thrust behind,— into the background. Generally, in man the soul is not in front. By yoga the soul is supposed to come to the front. But it can be thrown into the background by these forces taking advantage of some weakness, some vital or physical defect — unless the Central Being comes down and takes hold of the instruments.

Disciple: Can these forces take possession when the man

has got a fine mind — a mind which is higher than the vital impulses?

Sri Aurobindo: What is man’s mental knowledge before those beings? What does man know? Practically nothing. They know the complex of forces at work, while man knows nothing of it. Man has a great destiny if he goes along the right lines, but as he is he is shut up in the physical consciousness which is a very inferior plane. Even his reason requires data for its knowledge, and argument or reasoning can justify anything. Two quite opposite conclusions can be supported by the aid of the same reasoning. And your preferences determine which one you accept. For the data of reasoning, again, you require to depend upon what you see and hear — on your senses. The vital beings are not so foolish as all that, they are not so limited.

Disciple: What is the relation between the inner mental, vital and inner physical beings and the psychic being?

Sri Aurobindo: The mental, vital and physical beings are the instruments of expression of the psychic being. You can say that they are formulations of the psychic being here for manifestation in earth-evolution. It is the psychic being which supports the mental, the vital and the physical beings here. It stands behind them. The psychic being is what the Europeans call the “Soul” — it is the “true person” in man. It is the innermost being in the lower nature, it is the direct representative of the Divine in the lower nature. It is generally supposed to be behind the heart. It is behind the emotional activity which is its surface manifestation.

Ordinary emotional activity is not psychic in its nature. True psychic emotion is very deep, it is pure spiritual emotion. The psychic being open directly to the Higher Truth and it is that which can receive it here.

Disciple: Is it that the psychic being governs man’s mental vital and physical being?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But in ordinary men the psychic does not govern most of his actions. They are dictated mostly by outside influences.

Disciple: You said when speaking about X that he had broken the veil between the inner mental and the psychic being. What did you exactly mean by it? Is there such a veil?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is the veil: that is why most people are not conscious of their soul, their inner being. In X’s case I used the word “psychic” in the ordinary sense. He had broken the veil between the mental and the vital planes, opened himself to the worlds behind them, and he was unable to bear all that followed. There I used the word in the sense of the “subliminal self”.

Disciple: Is the activity of the psychic being mainly in the inner mental,, the inner vital being or is it subconscious?

Sri Aurobindo: Everything that one is not ordinarily conscious of is subconscious to him. It means that something happens behind of which the surface man has no knowledge. But really speaking nothing is subconscious. In a certain sense one can say that even the superconscient is subconscient.

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is not the Supermind. For instance, one can, by breaking the veil, somehow

get into the subliminal or the psychic being, but one cannot get to the Supermind like that. The psychic being opens to the Higher Truth, but it is not That, it receives the Truth. The psychic being is what is “behind” the mental and the vital and the physical being, but not “above”.

Sri Aurobindo: You can’t speak of the spiritual being except, of course, the being of Sat-Chit-Ananda which is not individual. These three principles are above the Mind and then the mental, the vital and the physical are below in the lower half. Between the two hemispheres, so to say, is what I call the Supermind.

You can’t get to the real Sat-Chit-Ananda. But you can have — as most people who say that they have realised Sachchidananda — the experience of it in the mind or in the vital being. But you can’t organise it here even though you get the experience. The organisation of the Infinite Consciousness — Sachchidananda — can only be done by the Supermind.

Disciple: Is the psychic being the entity that survives death? What is meant by kāraṇa śarīra?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the psychic being which presides over reincarnation, but the Jiva, the Central Being, which according to its need gathers the material from Nature. The kāraṇa śarīra generally means the Supramental body.

Disciple: In the orthodox terminology, though kāraṇa śarīra means vijñānamaya, yet they speak of it not as a means of development but as a means of escape. To them the use of kāraṇa śarīra is to burn away the seeds of everything that is in Nature. They believe that unless the seed is burnt there in the kāraṇa śarīra one can’t really get liberation,

Sri Aurobindo: It is true, because the seed of everything that you see here is in the Supermind and unless y get to the Supermind you can’t really get rid imperfection in nature.

For instance, take filial love. Generally it represents something of the Above but the form it takes entirely misrepresents the higher Truth. Now, if you want to remove this error you have not merely to keep it down, because then it is not really gone, but you have to offer it up to the higher Truth, and when you know the truth behind it then you are no longer subject to the false form it generally takes. So it is with everything.

Disciple: They generally tried to get to the seed of all imperfection here and then they tried to escape from the world.

Sri Aurobindo: That was the old idea. It was based on the assumption that the Truth, the Supramental, can’t be organised here in this world. Because all that is here is imperfect, false, is not the Truth; and the mind tried to organise the Truth here and failed, so they thought that “going into the Truth” meant leaving the mind and life etc. And by an exaggeration of the same idea the world appeared not merely imperfect but an illusion. Coming back to life to them meant coming back to the falsehood. That is what is meant by the Upanishad’s image of “escaping through the door of the Sun”. If you want to come back you can do so as long as you are in the rays of the Sun. But once you enter the body of the Sun you cannot return. The start from another assumption — “that life is false and imperfect but we can manifest Truth and perfection here” — is possible. The Truth cannot be manifested in life here with present formulation and organisation of the human consciousness which works

with mind as its chief instrument. The mind cannot organise Truth here. But a higher formulation, organisation, of consciousness is possible here.

Disciple: Even the desire to organise it here the Mayavadin would like to call an “illusion” — Maya.

Sri Aurobindo: That way even the desire for getting away from the world is an illusion!

Disciple: In Tantra it is said that one should renounce even the desire for liberation.

Sri Aurobindo: That does not help very much to renounce the desire to get liberation.

Disciple: It is all right for those who have reached liberation but not for those on the way. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: One of the logical conclusions of the theory of Illusion was the idea that you must reject everything violently and that you can’t get the Truth unless you are disgusted with everything in the world. That is what is understood to be Vairagya — disgust for the world.

But I don’t see any reason why one should be disgusted with everything before one can take to the spiritual life. What we do is that we see the imperfection in the world and we do not accept the ordinary life which is subject to ignorance and falsehood. But we do not despise it — we do not look upon it with disgust and contempt. We look upon it with calm and equality — Samata — and try to understand what it is and what place it occupies in the Lila and its purpose.

Disciple: Generally, it is supposed that a man takes to the spiritual life as a result of dissatisfaction. Is the dissatisfaction a psychic dissatisfaction in its nature?

Disciple: The psychic dissatisfaction reflected in the mental or the vital being.

Sri Aurobindo: The true dissatisfaction is different from a mental or vital dissatisfaction, which comes when for instance, somebody runs away with your wife, or you have lost money,

Sri Aurobindo: The true dissatisfaction comes from the inner being which is not satisfied with the ordinary life when once the inner being is touched.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. True aspiration is always psychic in its origin. It is “the fire rising from the earth”, as the Veda says, “towards its own”. The Agni there is the “fire of aspiration”. It takes mental or vital forms which may be imperfect and therefore there may be imperfection in the aspiration itself. But even behind these imperfect forms there is something that is burning. Once one has awakened this fire it is impossible for him to rest satisfied with the ordinary life.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But there are various forms and powers of Agni — Fire — in us and also in the universe. This Agni in the inner being they spoke of, most probably, as the gārhapatya — the Fire belonging to the Lord of the House.

Disciple: What do We mean when we say that the psychic being in a man has: come to the front or when we say that it has become strong?

Sri Aurobindo: When we say that the psychic being has come to the surface we mean that it has begun to exert its influence on the other members of a man’s nature — It becomes first an active influence and ultimately is the influence in the being. And the result of influence is to turn the whole nature towards the Truth. In proportion as it increases its control and influence,

its formations and personalities in a man, we say that his psychic being is more developed.

Generally, there are certain external signs by which you can find out that the psychic being of a man is more developed. For instance, such a man has greater purity, delicacy in life in dealing with people and refinement of taste. One can hear, also, the voice of the soul which generally comes from the psychic being. But it should not be confounded with the voice that is heard in the mind. The psychic voice is true and it has something more imperative in it than the mental voice.

Disciple: Has the psychic being its own activity and field apart from its working through the mind, the vital and the body?

Disciple: But this psychic being, then, though present in all men, is not known to them?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; for the ordinary man you can say that his soul is not at all within his reach. He is so much given to the vital life and other external impulses that he is hardly conscious of his soul except at times when he has glimpses of it.

Disciple: Is it possible for a man to completely cut off connection with his soul? Occultists speak of “soulless man”.

Sri Aurobindo: The question is whether the majority of men have got connection with the soul at all?

Disciple: It seems, then that the soul of man is not interested in ninety percent of his activity and keeps aloof.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Generally most of man’s activities are dictated from outside influences and not from the inner being.

Disciple: Is it possible for the whole psychic being to cone at once to the surface or does it come gradually?

Sri Aurobindo: Generally, man catches glimpses of the soul and by degrees the soul comes to the surface till the whole being is controlled by it. But there is no fixed rule; the whole of the psychic being can come to the surface all at once.

Disciple: It seems most men get the spiritual awakening through suffering. Is suffering a necessary part of this awakening?

Sri Aurobindo: No, I don’t believe that. It is entirely an erroneous idea. It is a Christian doctrine and is a perversion of the Truth.

Sri Aurobindo: Not always; it involves subjection to forces that are not spiritual and for self-purification one need not always undergo suffering.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is so in some cases, though not in all. A man may be attached to something and the object of attachment is suddenly removed and the man completely turns over a new chapter in his life. Something that stands in the way is knocked down and then the call is heard.

Disciple: That means the preparation is already going on beneath and it comes to the surface suddenly after the shock.

The manner in which the call for the spiritual life comes to a man is also sometimes very sudden. For instance, in the case of Lala it came in the following way. One day he was going on the way when he heard two fisher-women speaking to each other. One said “It is late, darkness is coming, difficulties may come,

let us hurry.” This gave him the necessary push for entering the spiritual life.

Sri Aurobindo: Such things happen very often. These outer things serve as excuses, or rather occasions, for giving the necessary touch, especially in a country like India where the spiritual atmosphere is all around you, and the least touch is sufficient to open a man to it.

Disciple: Do you think that it is more easy to get the spiritual life in India than in any other country?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question of my thinking, it is a fact. Because we have been doing that work for the last four to five thousand years the whole past is living in a remarkable way, so that the slightest touch can open a man to it if he has anything in him which supplies the necessary material.

Disciple: Why is it that the spiritual life is more difficult in Europe than in India?

Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, because the Europeans never had it in such a degree as the Indians; and secondly what they had is far away from their mental and vital life, and so it has receded behind. Perhaps it is coming back now there also. That is why Europeans who have got a spiritual aspiration turn to India. It does not mean that they turn to Indians but to the accumulated spiritual force that is here. At any rate it is easy to make a start in India.

Disciple: Is it not also easier to fight the obstacles that come in the spiritual life in India than outside?

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily,— and not all. There are some obstacles which you can easily overcome here but there are others which you can overcome more easily in Europe. For instance, Mayavada is more difficult to get rid of in India than in Europe.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is not so. No nation is entirely spiritual.

Indians are not more spiritual than other people. But behind the Indian race there is a past spiritual influence

Disciple: Some people, who are prominent national worker’s in India, seem to me to be incarnations of some European force here.

Sri Aurobindo: May not be incarnations, but may be strongly influenced by European thought. For instance Mahatma is a European,— truly, a Russian Christian in India, and there are some Indians in European bodies!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; when the Europeans say that he is more Christian than many Christians and that he is “Christ of the modern times” they are perfectly right. All his preaching is derived from Christianity and though the form that is given to it is Indian the essential spirit is Christian and he may not be exactly Christ but at any rate he comes in continuation of the same movement.

He is largely influenced by Tolstoi and the Bible and by Jainism in his preachings; at any rate, more than by the Indian scriptures — the Upanishads or the Gita which he interprets in the light of his own ideas.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, because the Europeans call him spiritual. What he preaches is not Indian spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity, non-violence, suffering etc.

Disciple: The Russian people have an enthusiastic but tragic and gloomy temperament.

Sri Aurobindo: They are a queer mixture of strength and weakness. They have got a passion in their intellect

say, a passionate intellect. But they have a distracted and restless being though there is something in it which is very fine and psychic, though their soul is not very healthy. And therefore I am not right when I said that Gandhi is a Russian Christian because he is so dry. He has got the intellectual passion and a great moral will-force but he is more dry than the Russians. The gospel of suffering that he is preaching has its root in Russia as nowhere else in Europe. Other Christian nations don’t believe in it. At the most they have it in mind, but the Russians have got it in their blood. They commit a mistake in preaching the gospel of suffering, we also in India commit the same in preaching the idea of Vairagya.

Sri Aurobindo: If you mean it as a political leader he would have been nowhere successful.

Disciple: But his antagonism to machinery and his idea of simplicity of life would have been accepted in Europe.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think so. There are plenty of people who are against machinery, though they may be in the minority and powerless — and there was, at any rate, a fashion of simplicity. He would have, of course, given a European form to his ideas.

Sri Aurobindo: There are people in Europe who are enthusiastic about it, but the Charkha after all is a minor point.

Disciple: There are people in India who regard Mahatmaji as a spiritual man because of his yama and niyama — the vows of self — control and simplicity and his Ahimsa, love etc.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a great difference between the aim Of Patanjali and that of Gandhi and Tolstoi. The aim of Patanjali was to rise to a Higher Consciousness. He

proposed to do it by replacing the general Rajasic movements of nature by the Sattwik ones. There no idea of morality or ethics in it, and they never made yama and niyama the aim of their effort. Their aim was to rise above the ordinary consciousness a ri even their idea of saṃyama — restraint was not dictated by morality.

They wanted to gather power for a spiritual purpose and so they discouraged the spending away of forces in the ordinary way.

Disciple: The Gita speaks of four kinds of Bhaktas — devotees. — ārta,— distressed, jijñāsu — seeking knowledge arthārthī — one who wants to serve some purpose and jñānī, the man of knowledge. What is the meaning of arthārthī?

Sri Aurobindo: No. I had no knowledge. I did not know what God was. It was two years before I met Lele that I began yoga seriously. Deshpande at that time was doing Hatha Yoga, Asanas and other practices and as he had a great proselytising tendency he wanted to convert me to his view. But I thought that a yoga which requires me to give up the world was not for me. I had to liberate my country. I took it up seriously when I learnt that the same Tapasya which one does to get away from the world can be turned to action — learnt that yoga gives power and I thought: why should I not get power and use it to liberate my country

Sri Aurobindo: It was the time of country first, humanity afterwards and the rest nowhere. It was something behind that got the idea accepted by the mind; mine was a side-door entry into the spiritual life.

Sri Aurobindo (Turning to a disciple): You said last time that suffering purifies. Can you explain in what way?

Disciple: When suffering comes it forces one to separate himself from the instruments and recognise his true self and so he feels pure and light and this helps him to rise above the lower nature.

Sri Aurobindo: It need not make you separate yourself from suffering unless you have got the power to stand back from it; but this power is not inherent in suffering. Take the case of the unfortunate persons who are put into prison. They suffer but suffering does not purify them; on the contrary, it makes them worse. To my mind suffering is a sign of imperfection of nature. It is a stamp of imperfection on the individual and universal nature. You have to learn from suffering: firstly, why it is there, and, secondly, how to overcome it.

But if you take delight in it and invite it like the Christian monks who used to get whipped and take pleasure in it — that I consider a deviation and a perversion.

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. There are people who suffer and suffer and never turn to God.

Disciple: Tagore says, “Suffering or joy, whatever you give, I put it on my head and accept with equal joy,”

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, yes. That is all right. That is like all things highly sentimental and not necessarily true.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t protest. I only learn, I don’t fly away from it and shrink from it. You have to look upon it as upon everything else in the world — like sin and evil, for instance. But you have not to accept sin and evil.

Disciple: Christian mysticism derives its idea of rejoicing in suffering from intense Bhakti — devotion. Everything is seen to come from the beloved and welcomed

Sri Aurobindo: What does not come from God? Even evil and sin come from God. Why not accept them? If God drives you towards your neighbour’s wife why not accept it? They — sin and evil — have their place in the universe to fulfil and in evolution also.

But that is not the law of the human soul, the soul is not here for suffering. The Gita speaks of the Asuric Tapas and says that people who invite suffering torture the elements in the body and torture “Me”, Krishna, who am seated in the body.

When you say everything comes from God, you have to accept it with some common sense. It is all right so long as you are in the Vedantic consciousness. Everything comes from God is another way of saying that the Infinite manifests itself in everything. But it is not necessary that the manifestation of the Infinite here should take the forms of suffering and evil.

Disciple: Suppose I take everything as coming from God, can I not progress in the spiritual life?

Sri Aurobindo: You can take up any attitude which may give you spiritual benefit: for instance, if suffering comes you can put your attitude roughly as follows

“I have been touched, I know the cause which it comes from, and I must get rid of it.”

That is quite different from taking pleasure in suffering as the Christians do. In the movement of the Infinite there are both good and evil, suffering and joy i.e. there are the higher and the lower movements and if you accept and invite the lower and take delight in it, well, you can have it! If you want suffering, God will give you enough of it. That way would not lead you to rise above it.

Disciple: Generally, suffering comes because something in the man takes delight in it.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course. Even when there is the rejection, something very obscure in the vital and the physical being takes pleasure in it.

Disciple: Why should I accept one movement of the Infinite and reject another? What is the criterion?

Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge is the criterion. You accept those movements that help you to grow and release you into the divine consciousness and reject those that bind you down.

Sri Aurobindo: Then it is no longer suffering. It becomes an experience of Ananda. All this idea of suffering and self-immolation comes from the Asuric vital plane where suffering is the law of development and it is the Asuric influence that casts it on humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. It is only “a circumstance” of our evolution. There are planes where the element of suffering does not enter at all.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is also “a circumstance” of our evolution. Duality is the device of manifesting the Infinite

in ignorance through imperfect instruments. For instance, in the Supermind and Supramental world all these things — suffering and duality etc. — do not enter at all because there is no possibility of them.

What is suffering? Suffering means that the consciousness is not able to bear the contact of certain forces and assimilate them, because I have not got in me what the Veda calls the ṛtam — the, true or the right movement of consciousness. Take physical pain what is it? A certain force comes to me and I am not able to seize it and master it, bear the contact and assimilate it, and the reaction is pain. If the full force or even a sufficient force, to meet the contact were there, there would be no pain. It is the same thing with regard to what is called error and evil or sin. Really speaking, it is the infinite Ananda which becomes perverted into suffering here in duality. But suffering does not enter into the infinite Ananda, as conceptions of good and evil do not enter into; the infinite power nor error into infinite knowledge. Error is there and enters into me, because I am not able to enter into the knowledge that comes to me in that form and extract it out of it and assimilate it. The same is with evil.

Sri Aurobindo: The fact is that the Infinite creates a figure of himself in the Inconscient — you can say, even in the Nescient — and tries to manifest by the pressure of his: infinite power higher and higher degrees of consciousness till it reaches the Divine. This happens because in the Infinite there are infinite possibilities and all of the® are bound to realise themselves at some time. This universe is only one of its possibilities. If you ask why he creates it we have to say, “Because it is possible, we are obliged to say that he does it for Lila”.

It is not proper to expect God to act with the same motives as men! If you ask “why” and “for what purpose” in the human sense, then there is no reply.

Disciple: You said that there is the Asuric plane or world from which this idea of suffering comes; You said that suffering is the law of their development. Is suffering the only law?

Sri Aurobindo: There are two worlds: the one Divine and the other Asuric. The Divine is a world of harmony, idyllic beauty where everything moves in order. You may call it a world of “ideals” — a world of freedom — i.e. free movement towards truth, power and Ananda. But it is not possible to realise it here on this earth. On the other side there is the Asuric world which is a world of force, violent and hard — a world of self-aggrandisement, self-mortification and self-immolation. Harmony there is not. It moves by conflict, struggle, strife. The Asura increases his power by suffering, by what Gita calls “Asuric Tapas” — by violent means and self-torture, and thus tries to approach the power of the Gods.

Disciple: Humanity is badly off between these Gods and Asuras, because the perfection of the Divine world cannot be realised here on this earth as it is not the law of our plane, and on the other side there are the Asuric impulses and tendencies.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the old conflict between Gods and Titans symbolised by all the religions.

Disciple: But the religions say that you have to follow inc Deva and you are safe.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so easy; and it may be very good for the Deva but not for the man because the Devas would desire Ananda from it in their own plane as the Asuras do in theirs. At a certain stage in the yoga you can clearly see these two worlds and distinguish

the impulses coming from there. But if you want I manifest the Truth here, you have to climb above some still higher plane from where the world of the Gods and the Asuric world derive their truth. When I am speaking of the Divine world I am not speaking of “the greater Gods”. Both Daivic and Asuric world deviate the Sadhaka from the straight spiritual {{0}}climb.[[This does not refer to the true gods; it should he noted that there are gods — little & great gods — on many planes of consciousness. Worship of this binds the human soul to the lower levels & thus prevents its ascent to Higher Consciousness beyond mental, vital & physical consciousnss?]]

Disciple: You spoke about the increase of power through suffering. It is, I believe, of the same nature as the physiological reactions due to serums. Whenever a certain poison or germ is introduced into the system the whole system reacts in such a way as to produce more antitoxin and anti-germ than are necessary to kill the obstruction.

Sri Aurobindo: But that is not the example of suffering, it is the law of fight. It is well known that to a certain extent fight increases the power in man. But suffering is quite different.

Disciple: But if we have to reject suffering, we have also to reject pleasure because it is also imperfect.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is why the Gita says you have to reject both, rāga and dveṣa, ignorance and partial knowledge; we have to go beyond duality to the true Ananda which is here misrepresented by both pleasure and pain.

Disciple: There is a sect of Shiva worshippers in Bengal who put themselves to great tortures. Perhaps their idea is that they will earn more Punya, merit, by doing so.

Sri Aurobindo: The Indian ascetic idea of torturing the body is not exactly the same as the Christian idea of

suffering. They don’t want self-purification through suffering. They had the idea of self-mastery, that the body shall do what the spirit wants it to do. That was the idea behind asceticism. Self-mastery has been the trend of Indian thought all along its spiritual development. Even Buddha, when he started, had the idea of uprooting suffering and evil from the world. Only, he said that you can’t have it here in this world unless you go to Nirvana. The Indian ascetic self-torture was done in the violent Asuric way and by self-will trying to master the body by throwing great vital force upon it. There was also certain contempt for the body and for the limitations which the physcial being imposed upon the spirit. It was a violent revolt against that bondage.

Disciple: The Christian idea is “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted”. Perhaps they are rewarded in heaven in proportion to their suffering.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so mathematical, as that. It only means: when you suffer more, more grace is upon you. It is an opportunity that God sends you to liberate yourself. According to them salvation is in the cross — it is, in fact, a symbol of salvation.

Disciple: Even among Christians we find people who have different ideas. For example, the Christian Scientists simply deny the existence of suffering. It is said to be an illusion that will vanish if we reject it.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true. But to deny it only with the mind is not enough, you must deny it with the whole of your being.

Disciple: There was the instance of a man whom cobra poison did not affect., Is that possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is possible, if you can reject it not by the mind but with the physical consciousness also. But while you are rejecting it with your mind your body is crying, “Oh, Oh”!

Disciple: But instead of simply denying suffering would it not be wiser to look for the cause of suffering and uproot the cause? Then suffering would vanish.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true that refraining from overeating may help you to get a stomach without pain. But even then you may get stomachache.

What you say comes to finding out what is called the law or measure of your nature and trying to keep it. There are two ways: One is obedience and the other is mastery. What you speak of is the way of obedience. It is all true so long as you are on the ordinary level. But I am speaking about it from the highest spiritual standpoint.

Sri Aurobindo: At first we can gain in two ways by suffering. One is, we learn to bear it; and the other we find something in us which does not suffer.

When we have got the separation we can learn the way to transform it into Ananda. In the first stage some part of the being stands apart from the suffering and enjoys it. In the second, the Ananda of the separate self enters into the suffering. Lastly, there remains only intense Ananda and pain is transformed into it.

Disciple: A manuscript is said to have been found in Tibet which says that Christ came to India and learnt Buddhism then went back to Jerusalem and preached his gospel.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a very old story. I believe it was a Russian who invented it. I heard it when I came back from England.

Disciple: There are so many contradictory statements concerning Christ and nobody is able to prove anything. Some scholars even question whether Christ existed at all.

Sri Aurobindo: It does not matter in the least if Christ lived or not. The thing for which the name stands is there, it exists.

Disciple: Is it possible that such a movement could gain in mankind without anybody to organise it?

Sri Aurobindo: Do you believe a king marches to Lanka with an army of monkeys? Valmiki may have taken it from tradition, or from imagination and, created figures which so well suited the Indian temperament that the whole race took them into its consciousness, and assimilated them. Some even believe that there were Ramayanas before Valmiki’s and that even in the Veda you find Rama symbolising the divine and Sita standing for the earth. It also may be that Valmiki — brought it over from some Daivic plane to this earth. Rama might have lived but one cannot say anytiling definite.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, Krishna stands on a different footing

from that of Rama. He seems to be a historical character. All the myths that have gathered round his name may be later additions. But he is mentioned in the Upanishad and seems to have lived. He mentioned there as “Krishna, son of Devaki” — (one who lived in the island); there is also mention of “Dhritarashtra”. There he is recognised as one of those who had the divine knowledge. He was no doubt, somebody who made a very deep impression upon his age. But it does not matter whether Krishna as he is popularly known, lived or not; Krishna exists in. a much more real way than the physical.

It is very difficult to separate what the founder stood for and what has been added on to his name afterwards. For instance, very little of what is now known as Buddhism was taught by Buddha. Take the doctrine of karma — compassion. It was brought in by the teachers of the Mahayana school.

Disciple: According to popular belief among the Jains Krishna is now in the seventh hell! And in the next cycle he will be one of the Tirthankars! He is now in hell because he was responsible for so much killing — hiṃsā.

Disciple: In Bengal the Madans have made Rama accept Madanism and they have written books to prove it!

Disciple: There is a story of two Christian monks which is proved to be the same as that of Buddha and Ananda.

Sri Aurobindo: Religions are very funny. Instead of all these absurdities, if they get to the thing that is behind the religion it would be more to the point or purpose.

Disciple: What do you think of prayascitta — atonement — as a means of purification?

Sri Aurobindo: It is atonement; it is a form of punishment for breaking some custom or social law. It has nothing

to do with spiritual purification. It is akin to legal punishment.

Disciple: It is a belief that a bath in the Ganges purifies a man. Is there any truth in it?

Disciple: Ramakrishna used to say about the bath in Ganges that when you are taking the bath your sin hangs on the nearest tree and as soon as you are out it catches you and sticks to you again!

Sri Aurobindo: Some people are said to feel pure and light after atonement. But generally they are ready to make another fresh start! All these ideas about death in Kashi and removal of sins are simply heresy and deceits of the vital world.

Disciple: You said the other day that birth, growth, decay and death — that is the law of life,— but it is not absolute; it is only a groove created by Nature.

Sri Aurobindo: Now, we have in “atoms” an example of a different law of life because they have a beginning and an end, but they have no growth and decay. Their death has been studied by science in the case of radioactive elements. The scientists speak of the life of an atom as the period — or length of time — necessary for its disintegration. The life of an atom varies greatly:

Radium is said to have about 1500 years. But the point to be noted is that the death rate is exactly the same for old and newly formed atoms. They have practically no age, and their death is brought about by decay and wearing away.

Sri Aurobindo: When I was speaking of “life” the other day I meant to imply those forms of life like the plants animals in which life is more organised and complex Of course there is life as well as mind and even supermind in the atoms, but these are not manifest and not organised, not on the surface as it were.

These principles — life and mind — would not manifest if there was not the pressure from the higher planes; because of the pressure they come out and organise themselves.

That is the reason why we feel pressure from above when we bring the Supermind. The Supermind tries to enter into Mind and Life and Matter and transform them.

Disciple: According to the biologists the characteristics of life are 1. growth from within, 2. Assimilation, 3. Reproduction and 4. Fatigue.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no fatigue in the vital force. Fatigue is only a circumstance due to the imperfect equilibrium between the physical and the vital. The same is with the mental. If you can open to the universal vital and mental you find they are inexhaustible.

Disciple: What is the nature of the balance between the physical and the vital?;

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by the nature of the balance? There is a fixed quantity of vital force and mental force that can be used by the physical body. The body is not able to bear a very great amount of those forces. That is why modern civilized man is much more delicate than the savage.

All these words “assimilation” and “reproduction” do not explain what life is. They are simply properties of life. You cannot know what life is with mental knowledge.

Disciple: We have different manifestations of life on the

physical plane. If we take molecules, cells and organised bodies — the three forms — we find at each stage that it is necessary to have a higher force. For instance, molecules by themselves cannot form or build a cell, and similarly a cell cannot build a body. Their growth would only be an amorphous mass.

Sri Aurobindo: That is true. There is the difference in the scale, but there is no gap, really speaking, from Matter to the highest Consciousness — though the manifestation of life when seen through the mind may seem so.

Disciple: For instance, scientists find a gap between dead matter and living. They can explain how the dead, particles of food — i.e., Matter — pass through the stomach and how they are absorbed, but they cannot explain how they are changed into living cells. They also cannot explain how the nervous stimulus, sensation, is changed into thought.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know that food particles are dead Matter? Because there is no such gap, the transformation cannot be understood by science. It is futile to ask “why”, because science can only know the “process”, the “how”, of things.

Disciple: Bergson says that mental knowledge only applies to the physico-chemical world and that the problem of life can only be grasped by intuition.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is true. Mind itself understands nothing. You say “this is the reason” but the same act of reasoning can lead you to a quite opposite conclusion. Even when a man acts, or seems to act, according to some “reason” he acts not by mental reasoning but by something from above — intuition. At a certain stage the substance of the mind itself is transformed into the intuitive mind. Then it is found impossible to resume the old mental activity. Intuition is an image to the Supermind; materials collected by the mind are

there, of course, but they don’t enter into the final decision. They are not the chief determining fact

Then you go on developing more and more and manifest higher and higher degrees of suprarnental working in which the action becomes increasingly more independent of the mind.

Disciple: Can an individual in the supermind know the function of, and deal with, the material world without the direct intervention of mental knowledge?

Disciple: I mean to say this: take a piece of glass: it is found by experiment that certain substances in certain proportions are necessary to give the best glass.

Sri Aurobindo: If the supramental consciousness were perfected in the physical there would be no need of experiment.

Disciple: Do you mean to say that a supramental being could be a better electrician without study and training in electricity?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? Do you think that the Supermind is inferior to the mind? There is a doubt at the back of your mind whether such a thing is possible.

Sri Aurobindo: Up to the present time nobody has cared to bring down and apply this Power to the physical plane. Something was done in the mind and also in the vital being but not in the physical.

Firstly, the yogis did not care for these questions of the physical plane. Secondly, they had other, more direct, means of dealing with them.

Sri Aurobindo: How many Supermen are there? But as say, this new Consciousness is a gradual unfolding. You find it in the atoms of your body and there is a

consciousness in the cells; you can also feel and understand the forces on the physical plane when it descends. But it is very difficult to bring it down to the physical. And even when it comes down there are fields in which it is well organised and works better and others in which it struggles and stumbles and errs.

It develops itself first in parts which are more prepared by your past development. Then the development is gradual and not miraculous. We may even doubt if it is possible to make a beginning at all, for, it is something which has never been done and the field is not prepared. But if we grant the supposition that this earth is the field of higher and higher manifestations of Consciousness, then it is perfectly logical to suppose that all physical phenomena would be brought under the control of this Higher Force.

Sri Aurobindo: Once you start it will go on working and there is no reason why it should be limited. TJie past efforts have not prepared it — because one can even doubt if it can come into the physical at all. The Higher Force is our one hope. We can make a beginning, afterwards it can be perfected.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon how long you can keep the body. Anyhow, it is perfectly possible that we may be able to make a start and it will go on gradually developing in man.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it depends upon how long you can keep the body. Even if we don’t succeed in perfecting it, but establish it in the physical, then in time it will unfold all the degrees of the Supermind and there is no reason to suppose that it will not manifest even

higher degrees than the Supermind — manifest equally in all, of course.

Disciple: In a case like that of X where the individual himself is averse to free himself from possessions — would he be able to get rid of it by suicide? Is suicide bad in such a case?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think that is the way out. Generally these ideas of suicide come from the hostile world.

Sri Aurobindo: Because they are satisfied with the Bhoga and they leave the body with the mechanical madness behind, or they may destroy the body.

Disciple: What would be the effect of this kind of possession on X’s future life? Will there be any weakness tending to subject him to the same influence?

Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say; but, I supose, it depends upon how far the psychic being withdraws from the movement. If the psychic being can reject completely and cut itself away from this vital personality that has brought about this fall, in that case the vital personality would be left to its own fate. It may either disintegrate or go into animal births and sink lower or be incorporated in the Asuric plane. But it would not be any longer a part of himself. Then the psychic being would have to build the vital and the physical being for itself and it may take several livs8 If he were not possessed as he is, and if he could live like a normal man in this life what he has done before might serve as a basis for his future evolution. But now he has to regain what he has lost. But supposing

that the psychic being is not able to throw away this personality in him, then he may go on repeating the double movement and one can’t say to what it may lead.

It is better for his spiritual evolution that this crash has come to him; for, if he had remained sane and allowed this force to work through him and himself taken enjoyment of it like Y, or become a big Swami and had

Disciples etc. then there would have been very little chance to recover from it.

Sri Aurobindo: It is apparent he can’t reject it in this life. It is a very serious defeat for the soul and it seems now this personality is a part of the composition of his nature and he cannot get rid of it.

But the psychic being may in a future life be able to recover the lost ground by rebuilding the vital and the physical which would be better than they are now.

Disciple: K, who is gone mad says: “I will stay in a room by the side of the grave-yard and inform me if Sri Aurobindo ever feels compassion for me.”

Sri Aurobindo: The compassion is to be measured by the distance — the farther he remains there is chance for More Karuna — compassion. (laughter)

Disciple: As there are forces that are hostile in Yoga, are there not forces also that help Yoga? What is their nature?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there are forces that help us, not direct! but from behind. You can say they are the Deva they help from behind and they work under the High Force which we are calling down. In our yoga we can’t take their help completely because the help that is given by them though considerable at certain stages is, after all, conditional. There are beings that are in sympathy with this effort we are making because they stand to profit by our yoga. They would be prepared to help in proportion to the advantage they derive and to the extent to which you fulfil their conditions.

It may also happen that when you try to go beyond them, they may prove to be obstacles in your progress. For instance, they help you if you give them worship. Now, in this yoga our aspiration being for the highest Truth, we cannot give our entire worship to anything but the Truth and it is the Truth and the power of Truth on which we mainly rely for help.

Sri Aurobindo: Hostile attacks are direct and so you feel them more; the help that is given is from behind.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Generally the help is from the mental and the vital planes and we cannot take it because the help is always conditional.

By the by I was talking to the Mother about the story that has appeared in the New India about the awakening of memory of previous birth in a child two and a half years old. She gave another instance of a similar case that is authentic.

It occurred in her own family. She has a brother who is a cultured, intelligent man who does not believe in rebirth or any of these things. He had a daughter.

Between the age of three and four years she was being given a bath by her father when she closed her eyes and began to sing a queer tune. Her father asked her what was the queer tune she was singing. She replied with her eyes half-closed “I used to play this tune when I was a shepherdess on the Porus.”

Now, none in the family had ever talked to her about Porus or anything else. The only person who could talk was her father and mother. There was a servant in the house who was an idiot. It stopped with that one memory and did not go any further; but it is clear that it was something that came upon her. If a child is grown up it comes as an imagination.

So this story adds weight to the possibility of the child remembering its previous birth. It is necessary that every case must be well authenticated.

Disciple: Yesterday there was some talk about the distinction between “feelings” and “emotions”. Emotions are those feelings which require the process of thought.

Sri Aurobindo: Your distinction is at least fifty-years-old psychology! Nowadays they don’t make any distinction. Formerly, they used to lay stress on mental classification, they used to subdivide and analyse all mental functions. But nowadays they deal, or try to deal at any rate, with the fundamentals. And so they now say that “feelings” and “emotions” used in the ordinary sense are the same thing. If you use “feelings” in the wider sense it may include “emotions”. But that is not the sense in which it is ordinarily used.

Disciple: I did not mean to say that there is any absolute distinction between them. I only referred to the practical distinction. For instance, when I say “I feel hungry” I do not mean the same kind of feeling as a high emotion

Sri Aurobindo: Really speaking, “hunger” is not a “feeling” You can say it is a kind of “sensation” which creates the feeling of hunger in your vital and physico-vital being corresponding to some “need” in the physical

Disciple: But take “patriotism”, for instance: we can’t feel partiotic unless we have the necessary mental development or enlargement.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t admit that. Even dogs have some sort of patriotism. What man has done is that he has woven a lot of things round all the animal impulses of nature. Ordinarily, what men call patriotism is nothing more than the instinct of the “herd”. The bees and the ants are also patriotic, they fight for preserving the herd and there also the individuals sacrifice their lives in order that the community may live.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and without proclaiming aloud that they are the highest in the scale of creation because they do it. It is the same animal nature; what happens in man’s case is that he raises it up to the mental being and there weaves all kinds of things around it — thoughts, emotions, ideals etc. and this justifies to his mind the vital-animal nature.

Disciple: The Gita says dhyāyato vişqyān-sangah is born. — “by thinking about objects of enjoyment attachment for them is born”. There it is clear that “attachment” due to thinking.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think that the Gita, strictly speaking is dealing with the origin of emotions in that couplet.

It merely tries to show that when the mind “runs after” and “dwells upon” something it gets attachment. But it does not mean that “thought” precedes emotions always.

Discipile: Sometimes a connection is established between a vital desire and thought.

Sri Aurobindo: That always happens. For instance, certain desires are accompanied by a certain thought-movement. And so, when the same thought-movement takes place, it reciprocally awakens corresponding “desires” or “emotions”. But that is due to association. It does not mean that the thought creates the movement in the emotions.

Disciple: But if I think about certain events I can reproduce the emotion which I felt in the past.

Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another matter. It is recalling by memory. I could even reproduce illness in the body by thinking of it! It does not mean thinking is responsible for it.

As I said, most of the things which man delights in are not much different from those of the animals. We have inherited and brought into our human life much of the animal nature almost intact. All that you call “emotions” are, really speaking, vital in their origin; and, as I have already told you, man has simply woven a web round them. Animals also have the same vital feelings, emotions and even thoughts. But in man they work in a different way, because he is a mental being. Man raises up all these things, and forms what I call the “vital mind” or what you call “emotions”. Emotions according to my classification are the vital part of the mind. Man simply has raised up the animal’s vital impulses and tried to mentalise them. The result has been what I call “weaving a web round” them. All these things therefore appear justifiable to him by his reasoning.

Disciple: I raised the question in order to understand a distinction between the mental, the vital and the physical.

Sri Aurobindo: I make a distinction between the “mental vital” and the “vital proper.”

Sri Aurobindo: The vital being is that which is concerned directly with life. You can call it “life-force” and all the movements connected with the life-force belong to the vital being. The fundamental working of the vital being is that it takes the form of Desire — the desire for objects, for possession, lust, ambition and, generally speaking, all sada ripus —“the six inimical tendencies” — belong to the vital plane.

This wrong form of the vital movement has a Truth behind it which assumes this wrong form because of ignorance. The vital being is, really speaking, an instrument, and must be used as an instrument, of the Jiva — the Central Being. It is a means of effectuation in life. In the Ignorance it takes the form of desire to effectuate itself; but in the Higher Knowledge it becomes sheer will, the power of effectuation without straining of desire, etc.

Man simply raises these vital movements, which belong equally to the animal nature, to the mind. That is all. He deludes himself into thinking that when he has connected some emotion with the vital movement it has become pure and when the mind can give a rational explanation of it, he has got a justification to go on with the vital play. In fact, that is the way in which these vital forces have kept their hold upon man. Take, for instance, what man ordinarily calls “Love”. It is primarily nothing else but the vital impulse which he can call the sex-impulse. It is everywhere in nature Man mixes it with a certain movement of emotion and

calls it love and thinks everything is justified by it.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not quite correct, because your body is material and yet it has got life and mind. In the physical itself you have got life and mind; only, they are involved. But if you can grow conscious on the physical plane you will find that there is life and even mind in the cells of the body. Of course, the life and mind we find in the physical world are not the same as we find on the vital or the mental plane. But you can’t deny that there is mind in it. It is that which performs the mechanical operations of the body with such a precision. The physical mind is the mind which sees only the physical and material aspect of things and refuses to see any other aspect.

Sri Aurobindo: The first thing one has to do is to know the nature of the being, and then he must turn to something higher than the mind for the attainment of the Truth. The mind can give some knowledge about it, but it cannot give the complete knowledge nor can it effect the transformation.

Disciple: You said just now that man has the animal nature in him for the most part. The European philosophers make an exaggerated statement of the same truth. They say the vital is at the root of everything in humanity, and they seem to idolise it.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? Man is an animal, or rather, there is the animal in man.

Disciple: These thinkers seem to deny the existence of anything higher in man. They almost seem to say: as man is an animal, it is good for him to be a conscious and an efficient animal, and he must try to be an efficient nothing else. In Bernard Shaw we find that insistence

Sri Aurobindo: But Shaw does not say that there is nothing higher than the animal nature in man! Shaw is an acute thinker. He refuses to be deceived into the belief of the greatness of man. He says that man must rise higher.

But it is one thing to have an idea of rising higher and quite another thing to believe that man is a highly evolved being. One of the most fundamental requisites for the search of the Truth is a critical reason, almost a cynical mind which tears off the mask and refuses to accept current ideas, thoughts and opinions. It is a kind of solvent. Man must have the courage to see the Truth as it is without any deception about it. Shaw has got that critical mind to a great extent and we find the same in Anatole France.

The second thing that a man must have in order to reach the Truth is the aspiration for a Truth higher than what has been attained. He must watch all ideals, principles and truths and see which are possible and how far each ideal can be realised; and, most important of all, he must know the conditions required for the fulfilment of such an ideal.

Disciple: If the Supramental Power is working then why do so many difficulties from outside come to a Sadhaka like X?

Sri Aurobindo: There are hostile powers that do not want the manifestation of this Higher Tower. The more you progress the more they become furious and try attack you. Secondly, it is not the highest Supramental Power itself that is working in the beginning. It presses

down upon the mind and through the movement of the Higher Mind it shows the ignorance and the imperfections.

Sri Aurobindo: First of all, you have to remain calm; that is, establish perfect samatā — equality of temperament, and not be moved by them. Whenever a movement of ignorance or imperfection comes you have to watch and see from where it comes; whether from without or from inside your nature. Then you have to refer1 it to the Higher Knowledge. You will find the Light. But in the beginning it will be mixed up with your mental movements. In the light of that knowledge you have to reject what is false and give consent only to the highest movement. As you progress more and more you will find a higher light and a higher power which shows the way of meeting these forces and of mastering them.

Ultimately, when you have got the highest movement, you become too strong for the difficulties. Of course, the higher protection is given to you. But the conditions for getting the protection are that one should constantly open himself to the Higher Force. Secondly, one must have a firm resolution and sincerity. Thirdly, a complete faith in the protection of the Higher Power.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; from a higher standpoint you can look upon them as tests of your progress in yoga. They show you your weak points and you can derive benefit — out of them if you take them in the right spirit.

Disciple: Suppose a yogi conquers the difficulties, would it mean a universal conquest for him?

Sri Aurobindo: First of all you have to conquer them in yourself. Then, in your surrounding; that is, in those who will come within your influence and at last, with

the sanction of the Divine, you can also influence events

For instance, there is no reason why a yogin shuld not be able to influence events in Russia or America sitting in his chair. He can also put his power behind men who are in the field and thus change the course of events.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He can by putting his influence upon them to change their course.

Sri Aurobindo: No. They are only forces and want to realise themselves. It is a way of speaking when one says “A yogin’s power is working”. All power is Divine Power and the individual is merely the point of support — point d’appui — and he knows it all the time that the Divine Power is working.

He can also use it egoistically and produce great effects but in proportion as it is limited by the ego or desire, it becomes imperfect and limited in potency.

Disciple: I want to know the distinction between the various psychological parts of the being: e.g.,

2. The vital — 1. vital mental (desire mind), 2. vital proper, and 3. vital physical or physic vital.

3. The. physical — 1. physical mental, 2. physical vital and 3. physical proper.

Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to put the distinction in language and, even if one could, it would be very inadequate and partial. If you take the mental being of man you will find that there is what may be called the pure mental part of it, which is high above the head and communicates through the brain with the physical life. It is the — “thinking mind”. It is concerned chiefly with reasoning, creations of mental forms and the activity of the mental will.

Then there are the emotions and sensations which are not really mental in their origin and stuff but they rise from the vital being and, coming up into the mind, they take up mental forms — mental emotions and mental sensations. That I call the mental-vital.

According to some, it is purely vital. So from the head to the centre of speech (neck), so to say, you have the mental being.

Sri Aurobindo: Buddhi is what I call “the pure mind”. It is the “intellect”. It combines the intellect and the will. It is the faculty of thinking and reflection. It reasons. It tries to answer the question, “What is the truth? What is it that I must do?” and also, “How must I do it?” And when this pure mental faculty develops we find it has a certain power of perception and mental vision. It creates forms and speech.

Sri Aurobindo: The centre of speech is at the root of the throat and speech is, really speaking, a mental faculty. It tries to communicate the result of thinking and reasoning through the medium of speech. It serves as &n expression of thought and it is also used by the Motions and the vital being for their expression. First they go up from the lower parts and express themselves

through speech. But speech is essentially a mental faculty.

Sri Aurobindo: When we use Manas in the general and wider sense it means the mind, meaning the whole mental activity — reflection, emotion and mental sensation, all taken together. But when we use Manas in Philosophy we mean by it the “sense-mind”. It is located near the heart. For instance, sometimes when people get presentiments they get it in the Manas,— in the sense-mind. That is why in the Upanishads Manas is called the sixth sense.

While Buddhi in the Vedanta generally means the intelligence with the will. It finds out the truth or tries to find it out and then decides to act according to it.

Then there is the mental-physical which is not the same thing as the physical-mind. It is not this which is behind matter and supports it. It is certain habitual, mental movements repeating themselves without any act of pure reasoning. Even if there is reasoning in it, it is mechanical. It goes on moving in its round even when the other parts of the mind are not conscious of it. It goes on mechanically repeating old ideas and sanskaras etc. There is neither vital urge in it, nor any creative activity of the mind proper.

Disciple: On each of these three — mental, vital and physical planes I suppose there is an element of the supermind. What is it that corresponds to the Supermind in the mental being?

Sri Aurobindo: Supermind on the mental level is the Intuition. It is not pure Supermind, It is the mental form of it.

Then there is the vital being from the navel and below it, or, according to some, from the heart up to

the navel. In its own nature it is life-movement or force trying to effectuate itself in life. Its crudest form is “desire”. In fact, it is force trying to possess and enjoy. It lays hold on objects and puts its own stamp upon them. It lays hold on things for possession and enjoyment. It is that which creates in man ambition, desire for women, greed for money, for power, all egoistic forms of desire, etc. Well, that crude form is very useful for life in Nature.

It is the vital being in man which wants to do this or to do that. It is busy trying to throw itself out. That is the essential vital nature. And behind it is the vital mind. It takes a thought-form but that form is different from mental thought-form. It is something going out straight from the vital being and not from the mind. It accompanies the vital movements, knows them and expresses them in speech and mental forms. It does not reason. It thinks and plans even as the pure mind does, but it thinks and plans in another way. It is a mind that stands apart and arranges how to realize the impulse.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not false. Only, it is vital thought and not mental. For instance, when Mussolini says, “Italy shall have a place under the sun,” it is not a mental thought, it is a vital thought.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not primarily an emotion. It is thought straight from his vital ego. Then it may be accompanied by the emotion of patriotism in him and he may even ask his reason to find a justification for it. He may tell his Buddhi: “Well, I have said such and such a thing. Now you try and find out a resaon for my saying so and also why it is true.”

Sri Aurobindo: The dynamic mind is the will, while the vital mind is the Desire-mind. It desires the vital urge without any reasoning. As I said, when the mind works it first tries to answer the question, “What is the truth and what is it that I ought to do?” and then it do not stop there. It also decides, “How am I to do it?” That part is the will. It also plans and arranges. But in a different way. The dynamic mind is the will that tries to carry out the decisions of the intellect.

Then you have got the physico-vital: that is the physical part of the vital-being. It is necessary in order to realize the vital impulses on the physical plane. It is that which is concerned mainly with passing events and transitory movements. It is that which is irritated over trifles, easily upset. It gets exhilaration of joy very soon, is also very soon depressed. It is a restless part concerned with passing things and makes one restless. The vital may have the necessary urge but if this physical part is not ready one can’t realise it on this plane.

All this forms the vital-being. It is a very necessary part for the full development of the being. In fact, it is the vital which supports the mind in its upward movement — at least, it should, because without it the mind would not be able to effectuate itself in life. It might remain only with ideals, ideas and principles.

Disciple: But then, is it the mental which draws out the vital force or the vital which calls forth the mental energy?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon what is first in the fid. It may be the mental or the vital according to individuals. So that if it supports the mind

then there is every chance of the mind succeeding?

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. The vital may consent to and support the mental being but it may not have the necessary strength to carry out ideas in life.

Sri Aurobindo: The Supramental in the vital is, you can say, vital intuitions and inspired impulsions and inspirations. It is something that comes down from above direct to the vital being — not necessarily touching the mind. It is that which gives correct intuitions as to what is to be done. There are persons — not necessarily Yogins — who, without reasoning or thinking, at once find out the right thing to be done.

All men of genius have got that capacity — a sort of half-supramentalized vital being, which makes them always do the right thing — the thing that ought to be done. They don’t commit a mistake in their actions. Generally they don’t reason. In fact they can’t give reasons. But yet they do the right thing — and succeed.

As I said, the vital being is a very necessary part of the being. When it is changed it becomes an instrument in the hands of the Higher Power. Then there is no longer desire but the Higher Force which acts through it.

In order that it may be able to do it, it has to open itself to the Truth above the mind.

Sri Aurobindo: Prana is the basic stuff of consciousness according to the old phraseology. It is that which is behind all the movements of the being here. It is different from citta which is the higher consciousness. There is, for instance, prāṇá-ākāśa and citta-ākāśa.

Then there is the Physical being.

There you have the physical mind, which most men have got. It observes and accepts the physical things around us but does not go beyond them. It accepts them as they are, and though we can’t say it “thinks” about them, yet it is that which arranges them in a sort of way. It hardly reasons except when acting in conjunction with higher faculties. It is, you may say, the farthest end met like the point of a pen, which is necessary for the work of the mental being. When I take up a pen and my hand begins to write something upon paper without of course, thinking anything about it — say some word or name — it is the physical mind that is doing it.

Then there is the vital-physical or physico-vital. It is the vital moving in the physical being. It is most important to us because it is that which makes the different organs act. And the functions of the physcial being are regulated by it. It is that which gives health and strength to the body. It is for this reason that the Upanishads speak of prāṇás — vital breaths — moving in the system.

They are most important because they form as it were the nerve-ends of the higher faculties. You can do nothing well if they do not respond to the higher faculties, to the inner being.

For instance, if you are a musician, you may have the best music within you, but if your fingers do not act properly you can’t succeed. They form, as it were, the farthest end of the inner being through which the inner being expresses itself on the physical plane. It 1s just like the pen through which the thought finds expression.

It is also the reason why the brain is considered as the most important part of the body. Not because it creates thought but just because it forms the connecting link by which thought can find

expression here. It is the apparatus which receives the higher working.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Even poetry. There are people who set fine poetry in the mind but the moment they take up the pen nothing comes.

Disciple: That is what happens to K. He says he has many things to write but as soon as he takes up his pen, only the pen and the ink remain. (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: And then there is the Physical proper, the material part. It is the consciousness of the body, you can say, almost the “flesh consciousness”. It is a consciousness even in the cells of the body.

The Supermind working in the physical is rather difficult to speak about. One can hint at it. You can say it is somthing in the very physical cells which makes them do precisely the thing that is necessary for the body. Because it is there, the body, for instance, knows what it should eat. If left free it would tell you what it requires and what it does not. Supposing you take up this object and then without any mental action or otherwise you know the weight of the object, straight as it were, from the physical.

But most civilised men have lost that, capacity. Men turned too much to the mental and the vital faculties that were rising in them. Generally, the vital interferes too much with its desire in the question of food and says, “I want that,” and “I like this,” “I like that”. And the mind also with the ideas, “It is good to take this food,” and “This contains this, therefore it is good.”

But the physical consciousness if left free, knows what it needs. Body has no desires, it has needs and it knows what it needs.

Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to get it back in its entirety but we can recover it to a great extent. In this respect we have lost many of the faculties of primitive men.

Disciple: There is something in medical science which supports the view. You gave out now that there is a consciousness in the cells. It is found that when food is taken, it is absorbed by the cells when the substance in the stomach is in a certain condition. It is then that the nutritive elements are absorbed by the system to the greatest extent. Now when a poison is taken and even when the conditions for its absorption are there ready, it is found that the cells of the body reject the poison; that is, they don’t absorb the poison. It is called “selective absorption”. It, as it were, knows and refuses to take a poison.

They sometimes know through the smell. We find in man that as the mind has grown at the expense of the vital being so also it has done at the expense of certain capacities of the physical being.

Of course one can argue that if man had not stressed his mental being so much, he would not have tried to find out the truth about these things. The mind would have remained idle. But the mind need not have remained like that. The mind is the consciousness turning back upon itself and looking down from above at the vital and physical. The mind could have taken the evidence of the materials which the vital and the physical beings had to offer and then gone further on with them, trying to understand them instead of losing those faculties.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends upon different people. Generally it belongs to the vital plane. But there are differences. For instance, style for its own sake, I mean,— the beauty of style, beauty of language, rhythm, etc., all that belongs to the vital plane.

But aesthetic creation can be on every plane. Originally, all that comes from the Ananda plane.

Sri Aurobindo: It is vital imagination. It is something working in its own way without regard to facts. If the man is powerful he can make his imagination realise itself.

Disciple: I mean people who can’t realise their ideas and go on imagining things.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Idealists who have not got the vital force to put their ideals into life and make them effective.

Sri Aurobindo: Memory is everywhere. All that one is conscious of or not, is recorded in the “Prana”, the basic stuff of consciousness. But one remembers Only that which one has attentively heard and fixed in his mind. But generally these impressions are received by the “Prana” and immediately they sink into the subconscious, or the subliminal consciousness, or whatever you like to call it.

There is the recorded instance of the servant girl of a famous French scholar of Hebrew. She used to hear, while at work, her master repeating the Bible in Hebrew. To her it was meaningless gibberish. Then

when she was in an abnormal condition she repeated her master’s speech exactly, with the same accents and without a mistake. And evidently she knew nothing of the language — that is, the mind did not understand anything of it. But all the time it was there recorded in the subconscious being. Even the soles of our feet have got a memory of their own.

We have divided and analysed these functions but it is, like all analysis, convenient only for understanding; things in reality are not so cut-and-dry They don’t work separately. There is a great deal of action and interaction among them and the being is much more complex in its actual working than may be supposed from the analysis.

For instance, we have divided the being into the mental, vital and physical. But when we speak of the mental, we take the mind working on its own plane, so to say. But all the parts are interconnected and the mind is working from above down right up to the lowest plane of consciousness and so it is with every principle. It is only for the convenience of the understanding, that we classify them.

Disciple: Do not these movements of nature correspond to the movements in the universe?

Disciple: Is there any relation between the aesthetic being and the psychic being?

Sri Aurobindo: There is a sense of beauty in the aesthetic being and also there is a sense of beauty in the psychic being. Beyond that there is no necessary relation between the two.

The aesthetic being belongs to the vital plane. If the man is not merely a master of form and line the aesthetic being sees that the beauty of form expresses something. The aesthetic being sees the beauty of form and line and sees also the beauty of something that is expressed, while the psychic being sees the charm of the soul.

The psychic being has no beauty as it is ordinarily understood. It is rather “charm”,— an inner beauty, beauty of the soul. But it need not necessarily have beauty of form,— though it may also have that. A man who may have a fine soul may not be beautiful.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what should be; but it is not so always in life. A man’s soul may be as noble as that of Socrates and he may be as ugly!

Disciple: Does psychic beauty consist in colour or line or such other characteristic?

Sri Aurobindo: Psychic beauty does not, or may not, express itself in colour and line like aesthetic beauty. It is something quite apart from them, though it may express itself through them. It is a certain indefinable delicacy and charm.

Sri Aurobindo: If you catch at Words like that you misinterpret what I say. Vital beauty also has got delicacy. But it is not that. Sometimes a look or a smile expresses not the vital but the psychic beauty.

Well, some flowers have got psychic beauty in them: for instance, the jasmine is a very psychic flower.

Disciple: The flowers have beauty but it is something new to learn that they have psychic beauty.

Sri Aurobindo: I knew it would astound you. You think the flowers have no soul? It is again man’s ignorance that makes him think that he is the greatest being in creation. Many dogs have got a much finer psychic being than many men!

Would you believe if I were to tell you that there is a psychic element in the love-making of animals? Take our cat. Big-boy. When he makes love to Bite-bite he is physical; when he makes love to Baby, he is vital; when he makes love to Mimi, he is emotional and sentimental; and when he makes love to Girly, he is psychic!

Sri Aurobindo: It is the egoistic ignorance of man that makes him think so. He is high because there is in him the possibility of evolving a divine life. You can say also that he is high because he has developed a mind and the mind gives him a chance of conscious evolution. But it does not necessarily follow that because man is a mental being he has used his mind for his evolution. Exactly because he has a mind, man has an infinite capacity to be devilish. He brings to the help of his devil a mind, and the devil himself can’t be so bad as man with his mind when he puts it at the service of his vital being.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the egoistic ignorance of man whic11 makes him think he is the highest in creation.

Disciple: But then there is the great difference between man’s body and the animals.

Sri Aurobindo: That is all; and even that is not so much as you try to make it out to be.

After all, what is the difference between the animal body and the human? If you see carefully, you will see you have discarded the tail, and instead of walking on four legs you have been using two, and the other two you have changed into hands. There have been slight but very important changes in the brain and some details here and there. You have cast off your fur and horns.

Sri Aurobindo: You see, after all it is not so great a change in the physical as would create a gulf between animal and man!

No. All that is human nonsense! Man is great because he can open to something higher and can consciously go beyond the mind and live a divine life upon earth.

Disciple: You said just now that jasmine in a psychic flower — is it so in the shape and colour or in the fragrance or in what?

Sri Aurobindo: No. I do not at all mean that the psychic beauty of the flower is in these external things. It is very difficult to convey the idea of that beauty to the mind.

Sri Aurobindo: The rose is strongly vital; the inner soul is lost in the form there.

Sri Aurobindo: The lotus, of course, is a symbolic flower. It represents the opening of the inner being to the higher truth. You can see that the lotus is a mystic flower.

Disciple: in Indian works of art, can you recollect paintings that have a psychic beauty in them?

You have seen that picture of Nandalal Bose — Pathahārā,— “Way-lost” (cow)?

Sri Aurobindo: There is something of it there, and there was another picture by Abanindranath, which I now forget. But generally Abanindranath draws his inspira. tion from the vital plane.

Sri Aurobindo: No. That is why it is difficult to know what is psychic beauty unless you can feel it with your soul. For instance, you come across a passage in a book, and you exclaim: “How fine!” Well, that is mental beauty but that is not psychic beauty! Again, a man’s face may show a bright light of intelligence but it is also not psychic beauty: it is due to intelligence.

Disciple: Can a person appreciate psychic beauty without having the psychic being evolved in him?

Sri Aurobindo: It may not be strong enough to impress itself upon the mind or the vital being, but it may have psychic feelings/and there are persons in whom these psychic feelings have an influence on their lives.

Sri Aurobindo: That depends upon what you mean by spiritual development. It helps man’s growth as everything else does. Cultivation of the sense of beauty refines the temperament. A refined temperament is much more easy to purify than an unrefined one. This is the thing which Mahatma Gandhi does not realise that the development of the sense of beauty is as much

a part of perfection as anything else. Not only that; if a man has not developed the sense of beauty he would miss the path of approach to the Supreme which is through beauty.

Disciple: You said some time back that the Superman would always look young as at 18.

Sri Aurobindo: Did I say that? I would like to say that he would look no age — that is to say, his body would carry an impression of no age.

Disciple: What is the characteristic of the Purusha on each plane of being — the physical, the vital and the mental — looking at the world?

Sri Aurobindo: The Purusha looks at the world as Prakriti i.e. Nature, represents it to be. On the mental plane Prakriti represents thoughts, ideas — in short, all mental movements. On the vital plane Prakriti represents itself as desires — in short, as action of the vital force. On the physical plane it represents itself as the unchangeable law of physical life.

Disciple: When the Purusha separates itself from Prakriti, how is it possible for it to aspire for something higher?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the Purusha but the Prakriti which has to be made to aspire and made fit. The Purusha is silent, passive, looking at Prakriti.

Disciple: What is the characteristic way of Purusha looking at the world from the Supermind?

Sri Aurobindo: The Supramental Purusha looks at the world as the Truth looks at it.

Sri Aurobindo: (with a gesture of hand pointing up): You get up there and you will see.

Disciple: In the Taittiriya Upanishad the following pa occurs: “Vijnana extends the sacrifice — what is its head; delight is its right side; great delight the left side; bliss, the body; Brahman the lower the foundation”.

Sri Aurobindo: Here puccham — “tail” — means the basis. It means the basis of ānanda (bliss) Infinite, the Brahman.

Disciple: Further it says: “By that this is filled; its head; Truth of movement the right side of being the left side; union, the body; the great plane the lower part,— the foundation”.

Sri Aurobindo: It means if you want to rise to the Supermind you have to attain the mahas — the wide, infinite and universal consciousness which is its basis: Ritam means “Truth of movement”. Satyam is “Truth of being” śraddhā is the acceptance of the Truth when it is there.

Disciple: When the Truth is there present on the Supramental level, why is śraddhā — faith — required?

Sri Aurobindo: śhraddha here means that when you see the Truth, you are ready to accept it. “Yoga Atma” means that the lower being has to attain the union with the higher being in order to go up to the level higher than the Mind.

Disciple: About the prāṇamaya also it speaks and adds that it is fulfilled by it.

Sri Aurobindo: It says that the mental — manomaya — is higher than the vital and is fulfilled by it.

Disciple: It also says “yajnas is the head; the rk is the right side; saman is the left side; command is the soul; atharva-angirasa is the end and foundation”.

Sri Aurobindo: Rik means the intuitive movement in the mind; saman is “the rhythm of the movement and harmony.” Atharva means “the effective action of the physical plane”. Angirasa, in the Veda at least, means

the power of Agni which releases the cows — the Light — from the cave of darkness of the panis with the help of the Word and Indra and the other gods.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, vyāna is the right side; apāna is the left side; ākāśa is ātmā. It may refer to the vital ether and Prathwi puccham pratiṣṭhā clearly means that the vital is based on and looks from above upon the physical.

Sri Aurobindo: No. The Indian trinity refers to cosmic powers which preside over certain movements in the universe Brahma-creative etc. “Son” in the Christian Trinity means perhaps the “Divine in man”. “Holy Ghost” symbolises the “Divine Consciousness”.

Sri Aurobindo: True humility is when you are ready to admit your own defects for which, again, you need not feel adhamá,— fallen. You feel that you have all the defects that are in universal nature and that you are not personally superior to anyone. You need not keep this feeling when the defects are gone and go on repeating “I am nothing, let me be full of sin,” — also one should not be swell-headed about it. Really speaking, it is absence of arrogance — humility is not a good word.

Arunachal Mission of Bengal wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo. There is going to be a world-peace organ of the Mission. The founder has been rendering spiritual help to all the movements of peace under its inspiration. Somebody is working at Rome on behalf of the Mission.

Disciple: There are according to newspaper reports fourteen Avatars — incarnations — in Bengal!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and X suggested a committee of all the Avatars (laughter). It was a nice idea, no doubt, but it may not turn out to be peaceful! (laughter)

Disciple: He also wanted to bring in Bahaism. His idea was something like four Lloyd Georges working together!

Sri Aurobindo: Some dreams have got meaning down to their very details. I saw one yesterday.

There was a scientist and a magician. Both of them wanted to rescue a girl from alien enemies. The magician was the psychic and mental man who knows the truth but does not know concretisation of the same. He has the grasp of the Spirit but not of the process and its details.

The scientist tried and the magician tried to save the girl. The magician failed. Then the scientist tried; he found himself baffled by the opponents as they (the dasyus, hostile vital powers) were not struck down by the blows of the sword or of anything. The opponents were going to a king’s capital. Then they fled and the girl was taken away. The scientist was a geologist who had made the discovery that the strata of the earth must be measured from the top and not from the bottom.

When the enemies fled they left their things behind and did not like to go into the capital wounded. The scientist then found a big book on geology,— half as big as this room — and among things left he found the girl just between the cover and the pages. The secret of the earth, the physical nature, was thus symbolically given.

Sri Aurobindo: It seems he was an ignorant man in the beginning, but had a sort of vital being which received

the Light — perhaps, not from the very Highest but merit light and it is with that force that he created Bahais He used to see the Light descend on him when he was in meditation.

He had also, in addition, the power of the word which is regarded as the sign of the prophet. The words may not be something extraordinary in themselves but they would carry a certain power in them. He had also a remarkable power of telepathy which he used when he was imprisoned and he used to direct his Disciples from the prison. He had a great power of malediction — power of cursing,— and many of his curses came true.

He caused certain letters to be written to the ruling monarchs of the time from his prison and, it is said that the manner in which each one received his message was reported to him. He cursed the Sultan of Turkey saying that Turkey would be ruined and his throne would be destroyed. Emperor Napoleon III did not receive the message well and he was also cursed. The Shah of Persia caused the messenger to be killed. I don’t know what he said with regard to him. But some of his prophecies and curses have come true.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no reason why it should not. Do you think that one can’t curse anybody? Especially if there is a strong support of a vital being it would be effective.

Disciple: All sorts of things seem to go on well in the U.S.A. There is Vedanta, Theosophy, Bahaism and what not.

Disciple: Swami X seems to have spoiled the chance of Vedanta. Otherwise, it would be going on well.

Sri Aurobindo: Vedanta is too abstract for the ordinary mind. It was the personality of Vivekananda that gave the drive. But this Bahaism is just what suits the common mind.

There are now two sects run by his two sons. Abdul Baha is the younger one. He has some vital force from his father and he used to see some kind of Light in meditation and so he began to think of himself as the incarnation of the Light on earth, and whoever was received in the fold was supposed to be influenced by it. Bahaism has included certain mental concepts also e.g., toleration, universal brotherhood, equality of man and woman, etc. The other day he included Buddhism also, though he seems to know nothing about it. He has about eleven million followers of which two millions are in Europe.

If the Madans get a religion of that sort it is much better than what they are having now.

Disciple: You said the other day that Tailanga Swamy’s remaining in water (of the Ganges) for several days does not constitute perfection of the physical. What is the notion of perfection implied in the physical being’s getting Supramentalised

Sri Aurobindo: (With a waving of his hands in the air): I have no idea (laughter). It is yet to be done. All I

can say is that it would be something which would have in it the two fundamental laws of the Supermind Truth and Harmony.

Disciple: Would the Ashta Siddhis — the eight Supernatural powers — be attained by one who attains the Supramentalisation of the physical?

Sri Aurobindo: You mean his hands and feet etc. can be separated (miraculously)?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know; wait and see. The best thing is when you have got the Siddhi to get some one to beat you to find out whether you have become invulnerable or not. (laughter)

The topic changed as another question regarding survival after death and projection of the being to another place came in.

Disciple: It seems that Sister Nivedita used to feel the presence of Vivekananda in the place where she lived.

Disciple: There is an idea that Swami X could appear simultaneously at three places.

Disciple: Why, our friend A saw B in Calcutta and he would not believe me when I told him he was not there — a fact which I knew to be true.

Disciple: One can easily prove that you were present at Bhavanipore, Ghittagong and Pondicherry Simultaneously!!

Sri Aurobindo: You see, you have in this example the explanation of how the Swami appeared at three places! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another thing; it is possible, even thought-formation and psycho-vital formation is possible.

Disciple: Vivekananda came to Shashi Maharaj after leaving his body and told him “Shashi! I have spat out my body”.

Sri Aurobindo: That is quite possible and even common to make the presence of the disembodied Spirit felt. It occurs in many cases, especially in the days immediately after death. The Spirit comes in dreams and visions also. Usually, in ordinary cases it is for a short time, but in certain cases it may be much longer.

Disciple: Ramakrishna used to appear at many places. Hriday, his nephew, asked him to be present at the time of waving of light — arati — at the Durga Puja which he did in his village far from Calcutta. He invariably saw him at the time and Ramkrishna used to go in to a trance at Calcutta where he lived.

Sri Aurobindo: That phenomenon is not so unusual. It is the conscious use on both the sides of a power which is unconsciously possessed by most men — the power to project oneself. In this case there seems to be active the power to project even the vital being, which is not usual. There was the capacity to receive on one side and conscious effort on the other.

Disciple: I had talk with a North Indian Disciple who seems to think that a yogi who has attained knowledge must know everything.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the man from Palanpur who saw me today wants me to know all the puzzles and questions etc. You can tell your friend that one can know a thing best by identity; so that if he becomes one with the ass he can know everything about it! You have in Yoga to know the One by knowing which everything

would be known. What is the use of knowing all details? Even God does not know everything directly; he manages the affair by his deputies.

Disciple: People have an attraction for miracles and siddhis, Ramakrishna used to relate a story about these siddhis. A man had attained prakamya — that is to say the power to obtain whatever he wished. One day he just got the fear: “Suppose a tiger comes!” The tiger actually came and ate him up! (laughter)

There was a reference to a “divine marriage” that was to be celebrated at Chandernagore. A letter and a photograph were sent for Sri Aurobindo’s approval.

Sri Aurobindo: I refuse to have anything to do with the matter. It is the girl who must choose her husband, and not I.

I can only add that marriages, generally, are not divine; and when they are divine no arrangements are necessary.

Disciple: Some people are trying to drag these things into the Supermind; but they must themselves get into the Supermind before they can drag others into it.

Sri Aurobindo: If they were in the Supramental, then the question would not arise, as they would never try to drag anyone into it.

Disciple: Except K who sent an unpaid letter which I refused to accept without asking you.

Sri Aurobindo: You did well. We cannot afford to pay two annas to have the pleasure of reading K’s letter. Money is too precious nowadays. (After some time) At times I wonder why at all I thought of bringing down the Supermind into this mass of idiots!

Sri Aurobindo: No; but wherever you may go, whatever you may do the idiots will be there. You see, when there is a big dinner-party some are invited and they come, others are not invited and yet they come, and others force themselves into the party! (laughter)

I am really surprised why these people come to me. If they went to X they can easily find sanction for the “divine marriage” or they can go to Y who is now doing karma!

Disciple: Y did dharma and artha,— now they are doing karma and finally there will be moksa.

Disciple: There is an article in the Vivekananda Number where this theory of dharma, artha, karma and moksha is expounded: it is all in the agnimoyi — fiery — language. I don’t know if they believe that people would accept these ideas.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally, people who have no brains would be carried away by the high-sounding, “fiery” language; they do not want thought. Such language would always carry away empty headed fools.

There are some people who have the knack of using high-sounding words: I listened to Surendra Nath Banerji for half an hour and I found no thought — it was all words.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, of course; what people require is

some kind of vital emotion—they do not [?] thought. People get tired of listening to thoughts

Sri Aurobindo: Not so; but even if there is thought you have to dilute it very much and throw it into the emotional vital.

Disciple: But they say that Surendra Nath was Burke and Sheridan combined in his oratorical powers.

Sri Aurobindo: He may be like Sheridan. I do not know. Sheridan was a great orator, he never had to think for making a speech. But he was not like Burke. Burke is thought, every sentence of his is weighed with thought. Though he was a great orator he did not produce as much effect on others.

Reference was made to Bhavanipore centre from where the Sadhaks had not been writing anything for some time.

Disciple: X was never in the habit of writing even before. His theory was that everything will happen at the proper time without any effort. Just as sleep comes and you can’t stop it so also siddhi of yoga comes on and you can’t stop it.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so simple as that. Yoga does not bring about sleep, I hope.

Disciple: Probably what he means is that sleep cannot be controlled; so also Sadhana.

Sri Aurobindo: But in sleep there is no question of “getting something”. It is a question of stopping something — Besides sleep comes to you naturally, while yoga does not. It may seem sometimes that the first awakening

comes without any effort on your part but afterwards it is all a slow working out.

Disciple: Perhaps, they rely upon Ramakrishna’s saying that if you light a single matchstick in a dark room everything in it is lighted up.

Sri Aurobindo: The simile itself is not correct. First of all the matchstick does not get lighted of itself; you have to light it. So it does not agree with X’s idea that yoga would be done by itself. Secondly, the matchstick lights up a small area and there are plenty of dark corners in the room. Thirdly, the match goes out very soon.

Disciple: So the simile falls to the ground. They also used to say that if knowledge comes then all actions are completely destroyed.

Sri Aurobindo: You have not to take these utterances literally,, They only indicate certain spiritual experiences. I should think he was quite an extraordinary man; there is no doubt about it.

Disciple: X had a great admiration for Soham — Swami and he used to come to Bhavanipore once in the year. Perhaps if he was alive X would not have come to this yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: But Vedant does not say that you can do yoga in a wink, that one-day you get up and find everything is done?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, what is the good of doing Sadhana and working long years after it? It is in Bhakti yoga — the path of devotion — that everything is done by Name and Bhava-emotion. Whether the path is easy or not depends on what yoga you are doing. In the ordinary Bhakti yoga you want a certain condition of emotional excitement, and intensity. If you can that you have done what you wanted.

Disciple: Do you think that such an emotional intensity can be kept up permanently?

Sri Aurobindo: Then, also, you have viraha-bhāva — the emotion of separation, which can be a state of intensity.

Disciple: But Chaitanya’s direct Disciples like Haridas did quite long Sadhana.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, of course. I am not speaking of men who do the real genuine Bhakti yoga, they have to do lot of things systematically and gradually.

Disciple: There are very cheap yogis — some who used to give brahma. darsana,— vision of Brahman, for five rupees. Some press the eyeballs and make people see the “light”!

Sri Aurobindo: The Gaekwad of Baroda also used to say the same thing. He used to say; “People say that Brahman is Light but that I see when I press my eyes. What is the difference between that and the Brahman?”

I did not know anything about yoga at that time and so I used to say “It is not quite the same light”.

Sri Aurobindo: Whatever the physiological explanation may be, it is certain that when the eyes are pressed or even without being pressed, if the mind is concentrated the centre of the psychic vision you see a light, a round

globe of light which goes on increasing. That is not due to anything physical. It is the light from one of the inner centres, especially the ājñā cakra — the centre of will — and you can make it very bright and big by connecting it with the brahma-randhra,— the centre on the top of the head.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. After all the distinctions we make between mental, vital and physcal are not quite true:

they are not separate parts — they are all one. And I think the Vedic Rishis found out a great truth when they spoke of the Sun in the physical as one with the highest Sun. After all the physical is as much a manifestation of the higher. Force as anything else and I do not understand why we should not expect in it similar powers.

I had myself a remarkable experience of the psychic sight. I was at Baroda and my psychic sight was not fully developed and I was trying to develop it by dwelling upon the after-image and also by attending to the interval between wakefulness and sleep. Then I saw this round circle of light and when I began prāṇāyāma it became very much intensified.

Sri Aurobindo: What the Hatha Yogi can achieve is that he gets the perfect control of the vital forces working in the body and he also controls the physical functions. This also produces some indirect influence in the mind. But I do not think that by Hatha Yoga pure and simple you can realise God.

Disciple: I know a Hatha Yogi who has done all the kriyās — movements and postures — and he said that even though he knew everything of Hatha yoga he had not seen God. He even said to me; “I don’t believe there

is any God because I could not succeed in seeing him even after so much trouble.”

Sri Aurobindo: That is because he stopped short at Hathma yoga; he should have gone further.

Disciple: But it is only trying for a long lease of life. What use is there in it? Vivekananda used to say that even trees have long life.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, that is not the answer. It is an epigram. I do not know why he should not recognise achievement wherever it is found.

Sri Aurobindo: Why should we not value achievement for its own sake? Even prolonging life everybody cannot do.

X came today in spite of notice to the contrary. He was not allowed to enter any of the houses.

In the evening Sri Aurobindo said: “He had no force this time; his movements were merely mechanical. The Mother has cut off inner contact since April and after that the forces seem to have left him.”

Your aspiration to be my manifestation and all the rest of the delusions to which you have surrendered yourself are not yoga or Sadhana. They are an illusion of your vital being and your brain. We tried to cure your and for a few days while you were obeying my instruction you were on the point of being cured. But you have called back your illness and made it worse than before. You see to be no longer capable even of understanding what I write

to you; you read your own delusions into my letters. I do nothing more for you.

All that I can tell you is to go back to Vizianagaram and allow yourself to be taken care of there. I can make no arrangements for you anywhere. I can give only a last advice: Throw away the foolish arrogance and vanity that have been the cause of your illness, consent to become like an ordinary man living in the normal physical mind. Now that is your only means of being saved from your illness.

There was a letter from Y. In reply Sri Aurobindo said: Her experience indicates the nature of the obstruction in her Sadhana. She has the ordinary feminine love and attachment and also a conventional mind. She is also attached to her children. She has to get rid of it if she wants to get along in Sadhana.

She had some aspiration in the mind and she has got some capacity there; but she was careful to keep her vital being untouched, and. so she can’t get on further unless she asks for the Truth there also.

Another letter from A to which he said in reply: It is no use her feeling the ascetic tendency. She must combine life and yoga. There is growth by meditation and also by life. She ought to try to be unattached and must bring the Higher Consciousness to bear upon life. She must do actions from that Consciousness.

As to external disturbance, tell her not to depend too much on outside circumstances for her Sadhana. In fact, one never gets the ideal conditions. The Sadhaka must depend upon his inner force and continue his Sadhana even when there is noise. I do not see why a man should not be able to meditate when the Hindu-Muslim riot is going on.

Meditation is one half of the development, while being able to keep the attitude all the time is the other part. When one has got the right poise he can meditate under any condition.

Sri Aurobindo (humourously): This information is for those who have to suffer the noise,— not for those who make it. (laughter).

The reader may note that the disciple who asked was learning instrumental music.

Disciple: In the Bhagwata there are descriptions of beings on the mental and other subtle planes. What influence is the Supramental yoga likely to exert on them when it is perfected?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? Do you refer to the mental in men or to beings who have no bodies but are living on the mental plane? If you say that a plane is Supramentalised then all the beings on that plane also must be Supramentalised. Then by that time the Pushwala also may have his being transformed. You can’t expect the Universal Law to change like that. These planes and the beings on them change in relation to you or in so far as they come in contact with you. But they cannot change by your doing Sadhana.

Disciple: How do the beings on the mental plane come in contact with us and how do they undergo change or do Sadhana?

Sri Aurobindo: These distinctions between the various grades of being are bound to remain; otherwise there would be only a Supramental universe. For the play — Lila — to go on these distinctions are necessary. Besides, among these beings, each has his own destiny to fulfil. They must go by their own way.

Disciple: How would the Supramental yoga affect the earth-plane and the laws of this universe?

Sri Aurobindo: If the Supramental Truth were marl fact on this earth, then surely, you do not think that the Pushwala also would immediately change. It would be more easily possible for other human beings to embody that Truth (i.e., to attain to the Supermind). It would create an atomosphere in the world. But in general humanity it would not introduce a sudden break. It would make it more easy for a larger number of men to attain to the Intuitive plane,— at present there are very few who can do it.

The influence of the man who brings down the Supramental Truth would be more effective on those who came in contact with him and that would be in proportion to his opening to the Higher Power. It would not mean that the trees would begin to speak or that the animal mind would suddenly change.

Sri Aurobindo: The Power is there that was not there before. The atmosphere is also there that was not there before; and so it is bound to bring about a certain change. But it would not radically alter the laws of the universe.

Disciple: You had indicated in a list of classified beings the “Asura” as one type.

Sri Aurobindo: I meant there “Asura” in the Vedic sense. The mental Asura is a mistranslation of something in the Supermind and in the original puissance. Pure

power is called “Asura”. It is the Vedic Asura and not the Puranic “Asura”. In the Veda “Asura” is a title applied to all the gods — in many places Indra is called “Asura”. It was later that the derivation from Sura was found and A-sura became the titan. Originally, “Asura” indicates the highest puissance. It is perhaps in the tenth Mandala that it is used in the Puranic sense.

Talk turned on X’s demand on Y that he should acknowledge him as God! This was in Bengal.

Disciple: X used to come to me in what he called the “divine mood”, but which I found to be an abnormal mood. And then he used to tell me that he was God. I used to remain silent.

Sri Aurobindo: Then when he pressed me too much I told him to uproot the tree in the compound if he was God.

There was then talk about another spiritual figure in Bengal. A Disciple of this Guru, A, argued with a Pandit trying to prove the Avatarhood of the Guru. But the Pandit would not accept it. So when he slept at night on an iron bedstead they applied an electric current and gave him shocks, to make him accept the Guru’s avatarhood!

Disciple: I also thought so. But after a famous leader became his Disciple there has been a change in. him

Sri Aurobindo: That is likely, Success may have turned his head. But I don’t understand why people demand external signs of an Avatar. What has it to do win, the external life?

Disciple: The idea is that there must be Aishwarya — power of God — in an Avatar.

Sri Aurobindo: Aishwarya — power of the divine being — is all right. But it is essentially a consciousness. What external sign can there be of an inner spiritual consciousness?

Disciple: But I suppose these two things: the inner spiritual consciousness of the Divine and the Aishwarya — the powers of God are not incompatible.

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. But there are lots of people who have powers — whatever their nature — but may not have any spiritual consciousness. For instance, Goue — the doctor, has a certain power, and so have some occultists in Europe. But they are far from any spiritual consciousness. Generally the man who has some such power is very ordinary and turned downwards in his ordinary vital movements.

It is not essential that the Higher Gonsciousnessi must manifest itself in life, and in action upon large masses of men. It is not merely a question of power. The question is what Power is manifested, from where does one bring it? For instance, Napoleon had a certain power but that does not mean that he had a spiritual consciousness. So there may be power or powers but no spiritual Consciousness. The higher up one g06 one finds that the ordinary man is left far behind him. Men cannot reach him and so his power cannot work upon them.

Again, you cannot expect work from the Avatar in the same way as from all men. He can work directly upon universal forces and thus work in humanity without seemingly doing anything and nobody can know what work he has done.

It looks ridiculous and also arrogant if I were to say that I worked for the success of the Russian Revolution for three years. I was one of the influences that worked to make it a success. I also worked for Turkey.

Sri Aurobindo: It takes time. I worked through some people but the Power stops when people became intoxicated with success.

Sri Aurobindo: Temporary occupation by the Higher Consciousness is quite possible. But I do not see the use if the Avatar has to make himself recognised like this by declarations or self-advertisements. Ramakrishna said this and I think everybody who had a great Spiritual Power has also said it sometime or other. There is nothing impossible in it. Such temporary occupation Chaitanya also had and in that state he used to speak as the Lord.

Disciple: These newspapers print anything they like. Can they print the talk that takes place in one’s house?

Sri Aurobindo: If you expect manners from modern papers you will be sorely disappointed in these democratic days. It is one of the blessings of modern democracy! If you were in America and did not give an interview even then they would invent one! The press is a public institution. Formerly, it was something dignified, but now the newspapers are the correct measures of the futility of human life.

Disciple: The princess of Baroda was married to the Prince of Wales of England in an American paper — with photographs and all!

Sri Aurobindo: Formerly there was no common mind and then it was not organised. It is the same with all other modern things — the press, the theatre, the radio; they drag down everything to the level of the crowd.

Disciple: But the radio and telephone are a great success in Japan and in Europe; one can listen to the best musicians for four to six hours.

Sri Aurobindo: But in America they do not know whether it is cinema that is helping crime. Of course, they want to use it for an educative purpose. They may relay good music but the question is whether people appreciate and understand it.

Sri Aurobindo: Gramophones were murderers of music. But unfortunately, it is the same with all things that requires popular support,— the theatre, cinema etc.; they succeed only if they can pamper to the common man’s tastes. The impact of the vital on the physical. plane increases vital desires.

Sri Aurobindo: They have to compromise if they care to be heard. But in that compromise all that is best gets so much mixed with “evil”. I do not mean evil in the moral sense but what is inartistic and bad. It is the same old question of the mass being pulled up by something higher. But, as it always happens, instead of being pulled up it is the mass that pulls everything down to its level.

Take, for instance, poetry. There is more poetry written now than ever before, there are some products of a certain type of brilliancy more common. Perhaps the number of people who read poetry is larger. But if you take poetry in the mass you will find that it is going down. Everything that depends upon the common man — the crowd — for its support has to come down to its level.

Sri Aurobindo: To me the condition of Europe, after the war especially, seems almost to be the same as that at the break up and disintegration of the Roman Empire. There is the same tendency to plunge the world into barbarism again.

Sri Aurobindo: There is always a chance. At the time of the Roman Empire also there was a chance, but it did not materialise.

Disciple: Men are beings on the physical plane, but they have vital and mental and psychic parts. Do the beings

of the vital plane possess also mental and psychic parts?

Sri Aurobindo: The vital and physical planes are different On the physical plane there is evolution through different grades of beings: ours is a plane of evolution On the vital plane there is no evolution. It is a plane of typal beings; there the consciousness does not evolve from one plane to another.

The animal has its consciousness held and imprisoned by the vital; and when it is ready the consciousness changes to the mental and the animal reincarnates as the human being. Some of our cats are ready for the human birth. In man that transition has taken place, he has crossed the border.

But the ordinary man can hardly be said to have a soul or the psychic being. The soul is there but it is covered up and very much behind.

Disciple: Is that what you meant by their being converted? Then can they help evolution?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they can manifest something higher than their vital nature and become instruments of the Divine. But generally they do not change.

Sri Aurobindo: They can be annihilated; but if you ask what would happen at the end of the kalpa, well, it is difficult to answer. If they change then they can open themselves to something higher, and try to manifest it.

Disciple: Some of the Asuras are said to have practised Sadhana. What is their kind of Sadhana? You also said that they are very intelligent beings.

Sri Aurobindo: I never said that they have true ideas and great ideals and that they were great mental beings. What I said was that they were clever in carrying out their purpose, they know how to work out results.

Sri Aurobindo: There is the old idea of devas and asuras — divine beings or Gods,— the titans — struggling to control human evolution. The Asuras are responsible for the great complexity of the world, but in my opinion they are not a necessity. The Asuras realise themselves through revolt, suffering, struggle, and difficulty. But the world could have evolved differently — more like a flower blooming from inside to outside. But the forces of the Asura-type entered the universal play of forces and perverted it. This is the truth known to almost all the religions: the snake — the evil, tempting Prakriti — Eve,— Prakriti deceiving Purusha — Adam. The Purusha consented and they fell: this they speak of as the fall of Adam, the cosmic man.

In India this struggle,— as to who should control the course of human evolution,— between the Devas and the Asuras expresses the same truth.

Disciple: What is then the truth in the Puranic idea of worshipping God through vaira bhava — feeling of “opposition”, or hostility?

Sri Aurobindo: In the case of Ravana, and also of Hiranya Kashipu, they were human beings who became Asuras and chose the path of opposition to the Divine. It is really a fall and it shows that the course of evolution for man is not to become an Asura. That is to say, the course of human evolution is not from the animal

to the vital being and then to the Asura. Asuric life is regarded as a fall for man. If you got converted Asuric nature then you lose the chance of your evolution.

Disciple: How should one protect oneself against the attacks and influence of the Asura?

Sri Aurobindo: Through purity and sincerity one is secure from the Asuras. They might give you blows, they might deceive and befog the mind, they might retard and make you commit mistakes but if you have the white light — of purity and sincerity — they cannot harm you. There is no definitive fall — you will go through.

Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane — does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?

Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.

On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.

Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras — there the Truth prevails. There are “Asuras” there

in the Vedic sense,— “beings with divine powers”. The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.

The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.

Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?

Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the “elemental beings”, or rather, obscure elemental forces — they are more “forces” than “beings”. It is these that the Theosophists call the “Elementals”. They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.

Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of “elementals”: one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category.

Disciple: You said some time back that some forces pf diseases are individualised while others are not.

Sri Aurobindo: I did not say so; what I might have said is that there are conscious forces behind the diseases. Diseases are movements of forces.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not diseases that feed on man’s vitality. It may be a vital being sucking up man’s vitality and the result may be a disease.

Disciple: What is the relation between these forces: the raksasa, and the piśacha and the pramatta?

Disciple: When a man acts from desire he may do things which he is not compelled to do by need; e.g. overeating lust etc.

Sri Aurobindo: There are no such universal laws of nature. If you ask people who have lived a long life you will find one saying that he lives long because he has kept to what you would call the laws of nature, that he is not smoking or taking wine etc. While another will say that he has been able to live long because he had always a peg! And so on. So there are no such universal laws.

Disciple: But it is a fact that observance of hygienic Laws diminishes mortality.

Sri Aurobindo: What you can at the most say is that if one keeps what you call the hygienic laws — one has a chance, a better chance, of escape from diseases. We set up these hygienic laws because people do not know the needs of the physical being. If you allow the physical being to be unhampered by vital desires, or mental ideas, it would choose the the thing it needs.

Sri Aurobindo: You may call it an instinct but when you become conscious, it is more than an instinct, it is the true consciousness in the physical being. The animals may have it more than man, but it is not complex because the animal has to rely on food which is not secure and so when it finds it is hungry, it does not

always make correct selection though it is more correct than in man’s case.

What you call “laws” are mere habits. I have seen people who used to keep to all the so-called hygienic laws and yet they did not escape disease. They used to eat out of pure need for the body without any desire and yet they were always sick.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not for observing the hygienic laws. Their aim is to reduce the needs of the body and the Rajasic tendencies and so they want to minimise the needs of the physical body. They try to take Sattwic food.

Disciple: Many things that are considered hygienic would be rejected by the Sannyasis as non-Sattwic.

Disciple: I took, in France, the food most forbidden for the Hindus and I found that it was not more Rajasic than the vegetarian food I had taken in India.

Sri Aurobindo: That is also my experience. I think it is more or less a psychological factor.

Disciple: The Gita has given a classification of what is Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic food.

Sri Aurobindo: But the Gita’s classification is with regard more to the character of the food than to the food taken.

But about diseases there is, really speaking, a vital balance which each one has to find out for himself — as it is not the same for all — and even when one has secured the vital balance, provided there is no bad

heredity, then one can say that one has the great chance of escaping diseases. But even that does give man absolute immunity. Even people who somehow stumble into this vital balance, once they a attacked by a disease — due even to heredity — then they get ill most suddenly and succumb easily.

Disciple: Will it be possible to feed only on mineral and synthesised formula of food developed by science?

Disciple: No, it will not. Science always goes forward and finds that it has to go further. When they found protein they thought that all proteins had equal value in food; now they find that each protein has a different food-value. So it will always be.

Disciple: In the war we were given a soup-powder which was very nourishing and good.

Disciple: When gelatine was found it was thought that the problem of cheap and substantial food was solved because gelatine contains nitrogen. It was given to the patients in the hospitals with the result that some of them died. They have found that gelatine does not contain vitamins. One of the latest ideas is that man can live on sunlight.

Disciple: Because science has not yet succeeded in preparing artificial food it does not mean that it will not succeed.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is. When I did my fast of about 23 days, while living in Chettiar’s house, I very nearly solved the problem. I could walk eight hours a day as usual. I continued my mental work and Sadhana also as usual and I found that I was not in the least weak; at the end of 23 days. But the flesh began to

grow less and I did not find a clue to replacing the very material part that was reduced in the body.

When I broke the fast, then also I did not observe the usual rule of people, who go on long fasts, of beginning with little food and so on. I began again with the same quantity as I used to take before.

Mahatma’s method of fasting seems to me to be the most unsuitable, of announcing beforehand and allowing all sorts of people to put in their counter-suggestions to him. I tried fasting once in jail, but that was for ten days when I used to sleep once in three nights. I lost ten pounds in weight but I felt stronger at the end of ten days than I was before I began the fast. I could lift up a weight, after the fast, which I could not before. It was not for conquering sleep that I began the waking experiment, but because there was a pressure of Sadhana and I liked to do Sadhana rather than sleep.

Sri Aurobindo: I believe it is perfectly possible Only, I did not get the clue. But because I did not succeed there is no reason why somebody else should not succeed.

It is possible to supply the vital energy to the body to a very great extent. Only, the vital material part of the body seems to need to draw the vital energy from food. There must be some clue and I had solved problem almost ninth-tenths.

Disciple: Is it possible for man to draw the vital energy from animals? My grandfather used to say that he got vital energy from the horse he used to ride every day.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is possible. You can even draw it from man without riding him. But the easier process is to draw the vital energy from the universal vital Plane. It is there all around you. There are two methods of drawing it: One is you exert your force and draw

the vital energy from the universal, the other is to be passive and to allow it to flow into you. Formerly, I used to draw it. But nowadays I merely allow it flow, remaining open to it.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so easy as you think. There are conditions for drawing it from man or supplying it to another man. But it is much more easy to draw it from the universal. The one fact is that in man the vital energy is limited, while the universal is inexhaustible. If you supply your vital force to another man you would be exhausted if you don’t draw it from the universal.

Disciple: One can’t say; but Bibhuti Bhushan asked him and he said he was young at the time when the battle of Plassey was fought. It is said that he changed his Bengali body and took up that of a Tibetan.

Disciple: He looks very old, his skin is dark and crumpled. When I went to him it seemed as if he would not be able to get up — he was lying down —; but he jumped up, quite like a healthy man.

Sri Aurobindo: That means he is keeping up his body with his vital force; one can always do that.

Disciple: But it is said that he acquired longevity by using certain drugs which are known among the Tibetans.

Sri Aurobindo: That is also possible. In the Himalayas there are herbs, I believe, which can give longevity and which are known by tradition to Sadhus and others living there. But even supplying vital force to the body does no give one absolute immunity from diseases. If you are

not on your guard, or if there is an accident, which you could not foresee, you may get a disease.

Sri Aurobindo: I meant to imply a distinction, otherwise I would have used a different word.

Sri Aurobindo: When I spoke of the lesser gods I meant smaller gods who represent the principle of harmony in nature. In them you find not the straight, but the free movement towards the Light. They go from Light to Light. It is like the Asura, only the Asura’s movement is perverse and violent trying to take the kingdom of God by violence.

By the greater Gods I meant the gods who preside over the universal manifestation. They are, really speaking, what the Veda calls “powers of the One”. They are different.

Sri Aurobindo: I was not thinking of any names when I spoke about them and they have nothing to do with the Puranic Devatas.

Sri Aurobindo: I was not even thinking of the Vedic gods. These smaller gods and Asuras are not the powers of the Supreme, the Divine; they are powers of the soul and formations on Nature-plane of universal vital.

Disciple: Is not the “heaven” in which man’s soul is supposed to enjoy after death different from this plane of the smaller gods?

Sri Aurobindo: The “heaven” of the religions is quite different thing. It is the heaven of the vital plane.

But apart from this religious “heaven”, the plane of the vital is full of charm and splendour of its own. I am not speaking of the perverse hostile vital world which generally comes in contact with our physical plane Apart from that there are beings that have a splendour and greatness and knowledge of their own. Much of the poetry and art comes from that plane.

Disciple: If they are not hostile beings, as you say, then they can manifest grand things here.

Sri Aurobindo: But generally they are too arrogant to do that, they are too self-centred.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Some of them. But mostly when you are doing Sadhana you come across those that are hostile.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no law of evolution in them as in the human world. For instance, they are not limited by the physical consciousness as man is. There is more of the universal movement in them than in man. Their only evolution can be in two ways. I think they also want to change themselves into some higher beings. They can do it by a sort of Tapas of their own and arrive at a higher consciousness or they can do it by service; i.e., they can put their power at the service of the Truth and thus change.

Sri Aurobindo: First of all, they influence and dominate man in order to manifest their power and take possession of the physical plane. Secondly, they do so in order to get worship of men by curing diseases and posing as god.

Thirdly, they do not merely dominate but take possession of men in order to take Bhoga — enjoyment — of the physical plane.

Disciple: Why are these forces specially attracted to places where people are making spiritual endeavour.

Sri Aurobindo: First of all, when you open yourself to some Truth which is Above by that very effort you open yourself to the worlds that are behind in a much more powerful way than an ordinary man. That gives these forces a chance. Secondly, they want to frustrate any such effort. Thirdly, there are some forces in them in whom you find a mixture of two tendencies, something in them wants to get into the, spiritual atmosphere and likes it while another part of their being is opposed to it.

Sri Aurobindo: There are various ways: for instance, ambition, or lust, greed, vanity, arrogance, any number of these things through which these forces can influence man.

Theon believed that the vital world is precipitated down on the earth and there is bound to be struggle between the Truth and these forces. Either the Truth wins or they. After giving the fight — the last struggle one of them would retire. At present the human being is more or less a field of this struggle, he is not a power of the soul. There are cases where man actually incarnates these forces.

Disciple: You said abjaut X when he went wrong that a great and powerful vital being came for manifestation

and it was necessary for the organisation of the vital plane of X. What is meant by organisation of the vital plane?

Sri Aurobindo: To bring about a harmony on that plan for effectuation. The vital being is for effective realisation.

Disciple: What would have been the nature of its manifestation if it organised the vital life?

Sri Aurobindo: It brings in a greater power of realisation a power of bringing about an inner change and then a change in your surroundings and then a power to change events. If these beings could realise themselves on the physical plane, then all the difficulties in the Sadhana would disappear.

Disciple: Is the coming down of such beings on every I plane a necessity for the manifestation of the Supermind?

Sri Aurobindo: These beings have no knowledge of the Supermind. But as they have a free intelligence they can be brought within the influence of the Supermind, and if they can surrender themselves to the Supermind then they can help as instruments.

Disciple: This force was trying to come down into X with a great power and was insisting on the laws of its own plane and X was allowing the expression without any regard to the laws of the physical plane — is this true?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, these beings, as I have said, have got a free intelligence and they are not limited by the laws of the physical plane,— they have not what we call physical prudence; they have an objective in view and a great force to carry it out. They simply press down for their own realisation. It is these kinds of forces that are behind revolutions and great movements

they do not care how much is broken in the process. We see in history some men of genius have been able to hold these kinds of beings in themselves. Sometimes when everything is broken and destroyed, the mind comes and presses down and tries to put things together and organise some kind of harmony.

Therefore the man who wants to hold them ought to have a sound physical mind which knows the contingencies of the physical plane and also has got the light of the Supermind. If the Supermind itself came it would be a different thing, because it knows everything, and if you put the force under the light of the Supermind you can use it as an instrument.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know. It was there when he left Pondicherry; it did not leave its address with me! You can write to the Post Office of the vital plane! (laughter).

Disciple: Why? Someone else can try to bring it down and break down in the effort? (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, you can. If something in you can put itself in touch with these planes you can know them and see them. I hope you don’t believe that your physical self is the only being in you? These forces have their own plane and they are not all the time busy with your earth plane. You must not exaggerate the importance of the earth-plane.

Even for us the external, physical life of man does not matter much. Not that the earth-plane is not important. It is important according to what you can put into it. Otherwise, how is the physical life of man better than that of an ant? In order to bring down any higher spiritual force into the earth-plane you require to sit down to it, you have to call down and hold

the Power in you. You have to allow it to organise your being and transform it. Then you can think of action.

Therefore I say, it would be foolish to expect m to go to the Bengal Council and work there. But per haps your physical mind thinks that going and working in the Council is, perhaps, more important than anything else! But your inmost being may have much more important work to do than that.

Disciple: You said that man’s life on the physical plane is not so important. But there are so many good things in man; how can we compare him to an ant?

Disciple: You spoke of the vital beings living on their own plane. Do they also fight each other on their own plane?i

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is what is meant by the struggle between the angels and the devils in the Bible. The being I spoke of with regard to X was not from the hostile vital world,— it was from the higher level of the vital plane.

Sri Aurobindo: parā śakti is not Supermind. It has over and above the Supramental power other ranges like the Ananda Consciousness. You can say that the Supermind is the organising power of the Divine which is behind all this manifestation. It is the Supermind which supports the whole universal movement.

Disciple: Can one say that the Supramental power is also “One’s own” power in essence — as we say of mind “my mind”? Can I speak of “my” supermind?

Sri Aurobindo: What is “your” mind? It is merely an organisation, for a particular purpose, of the universal mind. So long as you are in the Ignorance you go on saying “I”, “I”, “My”, “My” — and nothing interests you more than that. But when you get to the Supermind you know that it is all false. Then you know your Self; the jiva knows itself and also sees the mould of Prakriti, nature. You also know the Higher Power above and so you don’t commit the mistake which the mind does. Even when the yogi speaks of “my power” or “my work” it is for mere convenience. All the time he is conscious of the Divine Power that is working through him. It looks more pretentious to say “the Divine Power that is working through me”.

Disciple: Can we not say that the Supramental is already working in everything, because it is behind all?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the Supramental Power that is working at present in the universe; it supports this universal movement, but it is not working directly. If the Supramental Power were not there you could not deal with the material forces with exactness as you do at present. You can do so because the Supermind is there in Matter.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a consciousness and if you can bring that consciousness into mind, life and body you can perfect the instruments.

Disciple: Is it not possible for man to manifest the whole of parā śakti? What is the Ananda plane in life?

Sri Aurobindo: He may be able to manifest it in the future, when the Supermind has become a stable achievement. But the present organisation of human nature is quite unable to bear it. It is too infinite for man. I am not

speaking of the mental infinite. I am speaking of the Sachchidananda on its own highest level. You can imagine what would happen to man if the whole of the infinite Ananda came down upon him,— when you know that even a drop of it coming to the mind sends him flying and dancing and crying! When the particle of Ananda comes to the mind you get the paramahaṃsa,— jaḍa, bala, unmatta and piśāca types, the inert, the child-like, the mad or perverse, the devilish.

Disciple: It is, perhaps, because a fragment comes that man is upset — all the impurities in his nature are thrown up with the Ananda.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. If the highest Supermind came it would know everything, it knows the gradations — the stages — that are necessary, the time and the conditions.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the Immutable, impersonal Brahmic consciousness — it is the basis of calm and equality and universal passivity. It is an aspect of the transcendent, the Purusottama.

Sri Aurobindo: An impersonal attitude, calm and equality — it can give you complete freedom from nature, from all bondage.

Sri Aurobindo: Because it is necessary for creation, as a support for the universal nature, to maintain all the

play of the universal forces. He supports all equally as the akṣara.

Sri Aurobindo: Conditions? There are no conditions. I don’t see in what way it would help you even if I said anything. Well, the first condition is that you can’t approach the true Gods with your ego.

Sri Aurobindo: Gods are on every plane: “Gods” is a very wide term. It has no fixed meaning, it is rather loose. The vital Gods can give you power, remove your economic and other difficulties — of course, conditionally.

Sri Aurobindo: For instance, they can give you power but you have to satisfy their conditions and worship them.

Sri Aurobindo: The Asura gives you nothing. He only uses you for his purpose and, when your use is over, throws you aside.

But the vital Gods are sometimes helpful in spiritual life. One must be able to go beyond them. But they oppose you if you try to overpass them, they put obstacles in your way and try to keep you to them. It was the meaning of Indra sending apsards — heavenly nymphs — to entice the Rishis, the great seers and yogins.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the European mentality in you that says so. The form is that of a fable but there is a truth behind it. For instance, the Vishwamitra-and-Indra story contains a spiritual truth. If you come out successful

in their hard test then the Gods approve of your going beyond them. I

Disciple: The highest consciousness is said to be that of Supreme Sachchidananda.

Sri Aurobindo: The highest is what we call Purushottama, but man can get to the ananda plane only.

Disciple: According to the Vaishnavas, Krishna belongs to the ananda plane; they indicate it by saying that it is far beyond the akṣara.

Disciple: Is it true that if one wants to attain to the God he must do it through the psychic?

Disciple: I want to know more about it so as to have another clue. I don’t want to knock at the wrong door.

Sri Aurobindo: There is another way, if you want to try. Find your own highest self, which is not your ego and is not at the same time the Atman. Then you get to the plane of the Gods.

Disciple: Some believe that the true self is the jiva and ii one is on that plane then he is helped by the Gods.

Sri Aurobindo: Man is not a God. But he can attain to the plane of the Gods and there he has his divine self — the jiva — which is a portion of the divine. If you knock at their gates with desire, they show you on to the vital gods.

Disciple: There is a belief in the Trinity among the Christians, and there are said to be seven Gods and each soul is a person of one of the seven Gods. I wonder why seven only?

Disciple: Sri Krishna is described as having a blue light with lightning flashing behind it.

Sri Aurobindo: Blue is the characteristic colour of the spiritual plane and it is special to Krishna. Krishna belongs in the fullness of his divine Personality to the ananda plane and it is there that you get the fullness.

Sri Aurobindo: No; they are worshipped in the vital way, but their conception is much larger than that and they generally go up to the higher mental plane.

When the European mind leaves materialism, it takes the vital gods as the true gods.

Sri Aurobindo: Physical cells change and the same thing that gives pain gives intense ananda.

Disciple: That may be possible in Life manifested in Matter but in the pure Matter, in the domain of Chemistry and Physics?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? We are speaking of the material part of the human consciousness. What is a law? It means a certain balance among universal forces

under certain conditions. If you change the conditions you get a different result. It is not by a miracle that you change what you call a law.

Sri Aurobindo: That means you have not got to the thing behind the electron, the electron is not the last

Disciple: It seems the electrons have life but no age and we can’t separate the old from the young.

Sri Aurobindo: And I agree with children. The watches behave differently with different men. It is also certain they answer to man’s thought and will.

Disciple: Flowers have souls — watches have life! It is baffling. I have heard that motor cars have also life.

Sri Aurobindo: Fatigue is a sign of life. There is a consciousness also in metals, as well as mind. Life is everywhere.

Sri Aurobindo: (turning to a disciple): You asked yesterday about the forms of the Gods and whether they have fixed forms on their own plane. I was thinking it over and I am inclined to believe that they have fixed forms.

Sri Aurobindo: I think so. One cannot see that unless one passes entirely out of the human consciousness. They have forms by which they define themselves from other Gods and also through which they express what they are.

It seems there are three elements that enter in this question. (1) The form we see may be the reflection of the true or nitya form — which may not be entire and which may not be the same for all the planes. It may vary according to the plane on which it is reflected. Secondly, the mind or consciousness of the Bhakta — the devotee, may contribute something to it. Thirdly, it may be a mixture of the two.

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. But those who approach the plane of the Gods through the impersonal attitude without stopping at Sachchidananda-consciousness arrive, when they have passed beyond the mental consciousness, to a plane where they see the Gods in forms which resemble the human form. That is, perhaps, the reason why in the Veda we find the name purusa given to the Gods.

Sri Aurobindo: It begins in the Supermind and goes further.

We need not concern ourselves with it. It is trouble enough getting there.

Sri Aurobindo: What is the meaning of putting such silly questions? They are from the beginning of history

Disciple: What is the difference between the personality of a God and that of a man?

Sri Aurobindo: It means various beings and various natures. Different personalities may combine and form one personality.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, as far as history goes. I don’t know what must have been in the Sumerian period.

Disciple: What is the nature of this collective, or if I may say so, Super-personality?

Sri Aurobindo: You have to look to the characteristics of the Indian people to understand that super-personality must be something that corresponds to them. When you are on the other side of mind you can look at it from beyond and see how this works below here; but so long as we are here — in the mind — we have to proceed from the law of our present nature.

Disciple: I wanted to ask whether the nation that would emerge in India today would have the same characteristics as the nations in Europe or would it have something different?

Disciple: I had a discussion with X; he argued that we had no such national consciousness as in Europe and I maintained that we had something more.

Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps Europe has no such well-defined collective personality as India has. In Europe you have several clearly defined national personalities. For instance, England has a definite national personality, so also has France. They are trying to create some sort of collective personality. They have not yet succeeded in giving form to it.

While in India it is quite different. It is a well-defined collective personality which is already there and all these various personalities and types of the Indian nation are its formations, so to say. It is that which expresses itself in these.

Disciple: The differences between different parts of India are variations of the same collective personality?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the same as with the Welsh, the Scottish and the English, or the Bavarian and the Prussian, in the same nationality. If there were not this clear collective personality it would have been difficult to create a political nation in India.

But take the case of Asia. There is an attempt at the formation of a collective Asiatic personality. But if anyone made just now an effort to unite them under a political unity the result would be a disaster, a ghastly failure.

Disciple: Is it not a fact that the national consciousness evolves in face of common danger, and so there is an idea that Asia would unite when it has to fight against Europe, and humanity would unite when mankind will have to fight against the people of another planet! (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: That is a vital way of creating unity. Even in Europe, though there is no collective personality, yet there is a common mentality, a common culture and a common attitude against Asiatics and Africans.

Disciple: Plato says that each form has its own “Idea” —

that is, behind the form is a fixed Idea of the type a and it is that which persists while it is the individual that varies. The genus remains the same on the plane of Idea?

Disciple: I do not suppose Plato meant a mental abstraction by his “Idea”. It may mean “creative conception”

Sri Aurobindo: Plato had very mathematical ideas about these things. If he meant by it the creative conception then there are several things in it. First of all, it is not a mental idea but what I call the Real-Idea: that is Idea with a Reality and a Power. Now, corresponding to every form there is what may be called the “archetype”; the type-form, and it already exists in the Idea — the Real-Idea — before it exists in matter. Everything exists first in consciousness and then in matter.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know if Plato had some dim intimation of the Supramental; but as his mind was mathematical he cast it into rigid rational and mental forms. That was the Greek mind.

Disciple: The Buddhist have an idea that there are Gods without form — there are Rupa Devas and Arupa Devas. What could that mean?

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know Buddhist mythology. But what do you mean by Arupa Loka?

Disciple: A plane of consciousness where the Gods have no forms, perhaps, or they have forms which are so different from man’s, that for man they are no forms at all.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? The origin of all the

forms is there. Even if you call it Arupa Loka — the plane of formlessness — still there must be some form. The Gods there must be defining themselves from one another and that means they must have forms. If you say they have no “human form” it is understandable. All forms need not be human.

Disciple: They say that all abstractions belong to the Arupa-Loka — the plane of formlessness. For instance, the idea of beauty.

Sri Aurobindo: Beauty is not an abstraction. It is a power of the Supreme on the plane above mind. On the plane of mind you have abstractions. It is the mind’s way of representing realities of planes higher than the mind. Behind these abstractions there is a Reality. On the plane above the mind there are no abstractions, there are realities and powers. For instance, you form an abstract idea in the mind about the Supermind. When you get to the Supermind you find it is not an abstraction at all. It is more intensely concrete than Matter, something quite overwhelming in its concreteness. That is why I called it the Real-Idea and not an “abstract idea”. In that sense there is nothing more concrete than God. Even if we were on the pure mental plane we would find mind much more concrete and real. But as we are on the physical plane we always think the mind more abstract. Before the Supermind Matter dwindles into a shadow!

Sri Aurobindo: The sense of solidity, mass. That is perhaps what the Veda meant when it said, “Agni is wider of light, and concrete of body”. You can say that the Supermind is harder than the diamond and yet more fluid than the gas.

Disciple: This Super-personality or Collective personality — that presides over India.

Sri Aurobindo: I thought that was, finished — you round to that origin suddenly?

Sri Aurobindo: Driving me into a tight corner? It depends upon the national characteristics and so many other things. When you go beyond mind then you can speak from outside how the whole thing here looks. So long as we speak from this lower triplicity we can only say this much.

Sri Aurobindo: That is like the question which someone put the other day: whether “the egg is first or the hen” and I had to say: “Both together and the Cock.” (laughter) There must be the collective personality for the individual to be and vice versa!

Summary of some evening talks about the descent of the Gods in November 1926, i.e. before 24th Nov. 1926

There is the Supreme beyond description, who manifests himself as Sat, Chit, Ananda; in this Sat is the universal individuality of beings. Then comes the Supermind with its four Maha Shaktis, great powers. On the Supermind unity is the governing principle.?

Then comes the world of the Gods, below the Supermind and behind the manifestation. The Gods of Hindu culture — Shiva, Vishnu etc. — are names and representations

in the mind but they point to the Gods who represent the Divine Principles govering the manifestation of the universe. There is a hierarchy of these beings.

Below this is the manifested universe. The purpose of this is to go back to the Ananda.

The Devas — the Gods and the Asuras — the Titans — manifest in man to lead this world or creation to the goal. The Devas manifest to effect a new principle or bring about a change.

The Avatar does not come to do that kind of work i.e. the work of the Gods. He comes to uphold the Dharma. Some beings also come with him for the purpose.

In X’s case the higher being marked him out — as a possible instrument but the conditions were not ready. The internal being must be awake and conscious of the connection and the surface-being should not stand in the way — then every thing is all right. But if the surface being is egoistic then there is a crash.

The world of the Gods is above the psychic world. When one says an “Amsha” — portion — of the God manifests in a certain man, it is the man who develops into the God. The Gods do not evolve, they are principles or powers of the Divine. The Gods preside over the universe, they bring their qualities and powers to change the world.

In X’s case there was a grand, magnificent being. It brought a change even in the physical for a moment. It came and went.

The Asura suggests pride and ruin at any cost. A Supramental being comes down to bring a change, not to make noise.

I am trying to bring down the Supramental; things will happen, conditions for its descent will be created. Then there will be no obscurity in the vital or the physical. From the highest standpoint the coming of

the Supramental is decided, you can’t stand in the way. From the standpoint where we are working if is an advantage to be aware of the difficulties and to take account of them, and deal with them. The middle path is to know that it is coming and you can make the process more or less smooth.

The Supramental is coming into the world and is bringing on a provisional order — not yet the true order. It rushes where there is an opening; the opening closes and the hostile forces arise. It may utilise the hostile forces in spite of themselves. There are disturbances in the atmosphere due to wrong ways. Some can pull the Power with impunity.

There will be some effect on humanity but humanity is not the only consideration in creation. Supermind is not yet a part of manifestation. Its effect on man will depend upon what is thrown away and what is retained when it is established in our midst. Above the movement of forces it is already intended but is not evident. In the movement of forces the decision to accept the Supermind is not there.

Disciple: It is reported that Ramakrishna used to say about Vivekananda that he was an amsa — portion — of Shiva. What is the Truth in that?

Sri Aurobindo: There is some Truth in it. Each of these Gods has, so to say, his own group — what they call Ganas or partial powers,— each member of which represents something of the God. For example, A (who could not succeed in his Sadhana here at Pondicherry) would have embodied one of the four bodyguards of the Higher Power.

It is possible that there may be a great complexity in manifestation — one can manifest different godheads in different parts of the being. It is necessary to take these inner truths simply and in a straightforward manner without making any fuss. The external, human personality must not be disturbed; it often tries to cinematograph the thing like some modern organisations. That is exactly the way to frustrate it. Making noise is another thing one must avoid. The vital desire for name and fame, the cinematographic tendency, all should be clean washed away. There should be no ego if there is to be a divine manifestation. All noise should only be incidental. I spoke about the world of the Gods because not to speak of it would be dangerous. I spoke of it so that the mind may understand the thing if it comes down. I am trying to bring it down into the physical as it can no longer be delayed and then things may happen. Formerly, to speak of it would have been undesirable but now not to speak might be dangerous.

Sri Aurobindo: From the very highest standpoint it is all settled and your “yes” or “no” matters little. From another standpoint you have to see all the obstacles and take proper account of them in yourself. There is a middle stand-point — the mean, so to say — in which you can take it like this: the Higher Power is coming down and you have to receive it and as I said, you can make it easy or difficult for it to come down.

Sri Aurobindo: By aspiration, and then by an opening which allows it in you. Also by keeping yourself aware of the obstacles in your own nature and asking the Power to remove them. You must be wide awake to these thing.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t promise anything. “If the Supramental comes down” that is what I say.

Sri Aurobindo: You must not expect to make noise. It is a silent work. Publicity would attract hostile forces. You can take up external work only when it is in you: when you are doing the Sadhana in the mind then outer activities like the Arya and writing, etc., can go on. But when I came down to the vital I stopped all that.

Disciple: Is it true that the Higher Power has no human considerations for the Adhar in which it descends, because for the Power it does not seem to matter if the Adhar breaks?

Sri Aurobindo: The best is to have the Maha Saraswati and Maheshwari aspects working. Formerly I used to work in that way. Many would not be able to bear Mahakali — only a few can pull with impunity. All the four aspects have to be harmonised in us. The ideal condition is to have in front any one aspect of the Power, that is necessary for action, with the three others behind ach.

Formerly we used to celebrate the event of my physical birth in a “vital” manner. There was the seed of the inner Truth in it, but the manifestation was vital. Now, I wish that if the day is observed it should be in keeping with the Truth it symbolises.

You all know of the Supramental Truth that has to descend into our life. This day that Truth is symbolised. But there are several obstacles in the way of its coming down. There is the Mind and the mental ideas that grasp at the Truth coming from Above and try to. utilise the Truth for their own aims. There is, for instance, the Vital, or the Life-force, which seizes upon the Higher Force and wants to throw itself out into impure actions. The Truth that is coming down is not mental, it is Supramental. In order that it may be able to work properly, all the lower instruments must be Supramentalised. The lower forces want to utilise this higher Truth for the satisfaction of their ordinary movements. Whenever a man enjoys the pleasures of life, or spends his life in pursuit of his selfish ends it is, really speaking, these universal forces that take enjoyment through and in him.

In order that this higher Truth may be able to work in its purity, one has to open oneself to the greater Power above, to give oneself up to it and remove all

that stands in the way of the higher Truth. The capacity to surrender consists in these three things.

I have been working all these years to meet the obstacles and remove them and prepare and clear thp path so that the task may not be very difficult for you As for my helping you in that task it all depends upon your capacity to receive the help. I can give any amount that you can take. There is an idea that to-day every sadhaka gets a new experience. That depends upon your capacity to receive the Truth in yourself. Real spiritual surrender is of course, quite another matter ; but if any of you have experienced even a degree of it, even some faint reflection, then the purpose of the 15th will have been served.

Sri Aurobindo (in a clear but low voice): I cannot call it a state, or a condition. It is, rather, a complex movement. I am at present engaged in bringing the Supermind into the physical consciousness, down even to the sub-material. The physical is by nature inert and does not want to be rendered conscient. It offers much greater resistance as it is unwilling to change.

One feels as if “digging the earth”, as the Veda says. It is literally digging from Supermind above to Supermind below. The being has become conscious and there is constant movement up and down. The Veda calls it “the two ends” — the head and the tail

of the dragon completing and compassing the consciousness. I find that so long as Matter is not Supramentalised the mental and the vital also cannot be fully Supramentalised. The physical is therefore to be accepted and transformed. It is this birth after birth on every plane that makes the process complex. I am trying to bring the highest layer of the Supermind into the physical consciousness.

There are three layers of the Supermind corresponding to the three activities of the Intuitive mind. First is what I call the Interpretative Supermind. I call it interpretative because what is a possibility on the mental plane becomes a potentiality on the Supramental plane. The Interpretative Supermind puts all the potentialities before you. It shows the root cause of events that may come true on the physical plane. When intuition is changed into its Supramental value, it becomes Interpretative Supermind.

Next comes what I call the Representative Supermind. It represents the actual movements of the potentialities and shows what is in operation. When inspiration is changed into its Supramental value then it becomes this Representative Supermind. This is not the highest Supermind. You know certain potentialities working and in many cases you can say what would happen, or how a certain thing happened or can happen. But there may be no certainty. Finally there is the Imperative Supermind which corresponds to Revelation. It is always true as nothing can stand against it. It is Knowledge fulfilling itself by its own inherent power.

I have to distinguish between all these and try to bring down the Imperative Supermind into the physical. Thus, there is a constant movement up and down. The whole being is now made conscious but what is required is that no force should be able to attack the

physical. Then the second thing is to apply the Imperative Supermind to things within and, thirdly to apply it to things outside. At present, by the Supramental Power any force that attacks the body can be thrown aside. But when the process is complete no conscious hostile force — would be able to attack the body at all. In all this I am following a certain programme that was laid down for me when I came down to Pondicherry.:

Sri Aurobindo: Yes,— in case the physical is rendered immune the casting away or retaining of the body would be voluntary. One would be free to throw it away,— it would be, really, dull and monotonous to be forced to keep the same body through all eternity.

Disciple: Is it possible to illustrate the difference between; what one attains in the Mind and what is attained in the Supermind?

Sri Aurobindo: I can give one instance: The mental samatā — equality — I attained was not disturbed for months by anything. It was the samatā of the Shankerite outlook. But true spiritual samatā comes when the Imperative Supermind descends: the self-certainty of the Power brings the true divine samatā.

Formerly there was some difficulty in differentiating between will of knowledge and knowledge-will — say between force and knowledge. Now it is not there.

Sri Aurobindo: Whenever I am about to finish a definite stage in Sadhana the conscious hostile forces come and first raise up anything in the being and show it to me “Look here, this you have not conquered.” They can also attack.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is very clear, though the emphasis of the Vedic Rishis is more on going above — ascending — than on the return movement of conquering and transforming the lower nature.

Disciple: Do you know of any man who has brought down the Supermind to the physical plane.

Sri Aurobindo: No. Its insistence is on Karma, on action not so much on the Supermind. Besides, many other things are there in the Gita.

Who can describe this day? Nothing can be added by the colours of imagination, poetic similes, and loaded epithets. It is enough to say “It was the 15th of August.” No other day can come up to it in the depth and intensity of spiritual action, the ascending movement of the flood of emotions, and the way in which each individual here was bathing in the atmosphere.

It is the supreme sign of the Master to assume all possible relations with his Disciples, make them real, and Concrete. Each Disciple knows him as his own, and each

the Master accepts as his. Each believes the Master loves him most and it is true that he loves each the most. This feeling is not an illusion or delusive self-hypnotism but quite real. The spontaneous dynamic law of the Suprerne Truth which he embodies is love — divine love.

In all the inmates the delight of surrender is overflowing — the bliss of surrender, its sparkle pervades all. All is given up, everything is surrendered. How free you feel! How light and unburdened you feel! There is some one to take up the whole of your burden,— there is a power of Supreme Love. Him you can trust implicitly. You need only to give up your little self, the rest is his work you have no worry, no anxiety! No effort — only the way of loving surrender! How easy!

Every face is beaming with the joy of surrender, every one is happy and overflowing with joy. And yet there is no external reason, no outer materials for this intense joy. From where is flowing this unlimited Delight? They say the Master was not in such a happy mood these two or three years.

From early morning the Ashram is humming with various activities: decoration, flowers, garlands, food, bath etc. All are eager to go up to the Master for his Darshan. As the time passes there is a tide in the flood of rising emotion. It is “Darshan” — we see him everyday, but today it is “Darshan” ! Today each sees him individually, one after another. In the midst of these multiple activities the consciousness gets concentrated. Today is “Darshan” — not of human being but of some Supreme Divinity. Today is the rare chance of seeing the Divine.

There he sits — in the royal chair in the verandah — royal and majestic. In the very posture there is divine self-confidence. In the heart of the Supreme Master, the great Yogin — a sea of emotions is heaving — is it a flood that mounts from or a flood that is coming down on humanity

Those alone who have experienced it can know something of its divinity. Those who have bathed in it once can never come out of that ocean. He sits there — with pink and white lotus garlands. It is the small flower — token of the offerings by the Disciples. Hearts throb, prayers, requests, emotions pour forth — and a flood of blessings pours down carrying all of them away in its speed. Lack of faith, doubts get assurance. All human needs the Divine fulfils and, after fulfilling, his grace overflows. Love and grace flow on undiminished. The look! — the enrapturing and captivating eyes! Who can ever forget? — pouring love and grace and ineffable divinity. If some transcendent Divinity is not here where else can he be?

He is usually an embodiment of Knowledge. But today he is different. He is all love. Here is the Great Poet and the Supreme Lover incarnate! It is an inquiring, loving and blessing in a glance! Man does wonders with his eyes and looks but to do so much divinity is needed.

The question is what to ask? love or blessings! or, should one pray for love and blessings both and in addition for the acceptance of unworthy persons like us? Standing on the brink of Eternity when the soul saw his dreamy and loving eyes, then was it captured for ever. The inexplicable mystery of divine love was here a tangible experience! who can explain a fact? A fact is a fact and an experience an experience. There is no explanation possible.

“What should I give him?” is the question of the mind. “What should I ask?” is the question of the heart. Both refuse to answer and both are unanswered. The mind feels the insignificance of its offering, and remains mute. The heart is ashamed because of its beggar’s attitude, it even feels its pride wounded. How to solve this pleasant embarrassment? The beggar heart carries the day. There even a kind of curiosity to find out how one is accepted, What happens to oneself

But all this was before Darshan. As one actually stance in front all curiosity, all pride, all thoughts, all questions all resolutions are swept away in some terrific divine Niagara. Thou embodiment of love Supreme! what transparency! In the heart of the Supreme Master also an ocean of emotion is heaving. The heart melts and falls at his feet without knowing, it surrenders itself! where is here a place for speech! There is only one speech! — the language of the body and its flexion, that of the! prostration of the body in the act of surrender, throbbing of the heart and that of the flow of tears from the eyes! What a peace pregnant with divinity! What a beauty of this experience!

Everyone is trying to maintain samatā — equality. Everyone is quiet and is trying hard to remain calm. But today all the barriers of humanity are swept away by the flood of Divine Love. The soul has its samatā — its equality — but the whole nature is in agitation as unknown waters have rushed into it. Knowledge is laid on the shelf — and it is all a flood of love. Today the soul has received the certitude of the Divine’s victory as it had never done before.

In the dining room are gathered all bathing and bathed in delight. Everyone is happy — supremely happy — in perfect ecstasy. Today there is an empire of Delight! O Artist! what a marvellous art! So much of delight — for everyone of them! delight that fills each and overflows. At four o’clock all gather at the usual place of sitting — the verandah. All sit there full of hope in silence; one or two whisper to each other. The mind of the company is silently repeating, When will he come? May he come. It is four fifteen; — the old familiar and yet new tick behind the door! Slowly a door opens: The Master steps out first behind him the Mother with white creamy san — with broad red border. He sat in his usual broad Japanese chair. The Mother sat on the right side on a small stool.

Then he glanced at each one separately. The minutes were melting into the silence. There is again a wave of emotion in all, all bathe again into an ocean of some divine emotion. How wonderful if the whole Eternity would flow in this experience! Time, poor Time and its flow is blamed by men. But where is the fault in the flow of Time? If so much Love and such Divine Delight can have its play — let poor Time flow and have its Eternity! And let the world become Divine! Another powerful aspiration that came to the surface was: “Expression is not needed — let the whole of eternity flow away in this silence!”

When the Master came for the evening sitting emanating joy he asked with a smile, “What do you want today? — Silence or speech?” As if he had come to confer whatever boon we ask. For a time it was silence that reigned. Then from that silence a flow appeared to start. The hearts of the Disciples were tip — toe with expectation, for today they were hearing not human speech but words from the Divine. To hear with human ears the Lord speak! What a fulfilment!

(This year Sri Aurobindo came out at 9-15 in the morning and again at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. He spoke for about 30-35 minutes, 10-15 minutes he remained silent in the beginning.)

It has become customary to expect some speech from me on this day. I prefer to communicate through the Silent Consciousness, because speech addresses itself to the mind while through the Silent Consciousness one can reach something deeper. We are practising together a yoga which is quite different in certain essentials from other methods which go by the same name. According to the old method we have to select the intellect, the emotion or the will or to difierenciate between Purusha and Prakriti, the conscious Soul and Nature. By that we arrive at an Infinite of Knowledge, an all-Loving and all-Beautiful Supreme or an Infinite Impersonal Will, Or the Silent Brahman beyond our mind, emotional Being or, Will or our individual Purusha.

Our yoga does not aim at an Impersonal Infinite of knowledge, Will or Ananda but at the realization of a Supreme Being, an Infinite Knowledge which is beyond the limited infinity of the human knowledge, an Infinite Power which is the source of our personal will and an Ananda which cannot be seized by surface movement of emotions.

This Supreme Being that we want to realize is not impersonal Infinite but a Divine Personality; and in order to realize Him we have to grow conscious of our own true personality. You must know your own inner y being. This Personality is not the inner mental, the p inner vital and the inner physical being and its consciousness as is many times wrongly described, but it is your true Being which is in direct communication with the Highest. Man grows by gradual growth in Nature and each has to realize his own Divine Person which is in the Supermind. Each is one with the Divine in essence but in nature each is a partial manifestation of the Supreme Being.:

Such being the aim of our yoga we want to return

upon life and transform it. The old yogas failed to transform life because, they did not go beyond mind. They used to catch at mental experiences but when they came to apply them to life they reduced it to a mental formula. For example, the mental experience of the Infinite or the application of the principle of universal Love.

We have therefore, to grow conscious on all the planes of our being, and to bring down the higher light, power and ananda to govern even the most external details of life. We must detach ourselves and observe all that is going on in the Nature, not even the smallest movement, the most external act must remain unnoticed. This process is comparatively easy in the mental and vital planes. But in the physico-vital and the physical plane the powers of ignorance hold their sway and reign in full force, persisting in what they believe to be the eternal laws. They obstruct the passage of the Higher light and hold up their flag. It is there that the powers of darkness, again and again, cover the being and even when the physico-vital is opened the elements of ignorance come up from the lower levels of the physical being. To deal with them is a work of great patience. The physico-vital and the physical being do not accept the Higher Law and persist. They justify their persistence and their play by intellectual and other justifications and thus they try to deceive the sadhaka under various guises.

Generally, the vital being is very impatient and wants to get things done quickly on the physico-vital and physical planes. But this has very violent reactions and therefore the mental and the vital being, instead of seizing upon the Higher Light and Power, should surrender themselves to the higher Power. We have not to rest satisfied with partial transformation. We have to

bring down the higher Power to the physical plan and govern the most external detail of life by it. Mind cannot govern them. We have to call down the Higher Light, Power and Ananda to transform our present nature This requires an essential utter sincerity in every part of the being, which can see clearly all that is going on in the Being and which wants only the Truth and nothing but the Truth.

The second condition of the Light coming down and governing even the smallest detail of life is that one must grow conscious of his Divine personality which is in the Supermind.

There is sometimes a tendency in the Sadhaka to be satisfied with experiences. One should not rest content with mere experiences.

Another thing is that, here, as we are, all of us together, given to the pursuit of the same Truth the whole time we have arrived at some kind of solidarity so that we can mutually help or retard our progress.

The conditions of transformation of the being are the opening of ourselves to the Higher Light and an absolute surrender. This brings about the transformation, so that if there is the entire essential sincerity, opening to the Light and surrender and a gradual growth of consciousness on all the planes, you can become an ideal Sadhaka of this Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo came out and anticipating the questions about his own sadhana, asked X. “Do you want me to keep the tradition?”

Disciple: I was thinking of asking about your sadhana

but I was afraid of being referred to the “Silent Consciousness”.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you then want me to speak about the Silent Consciousness like Carlyle who preached his doctrine of silence in 40 volumes?

Disciple: The difficulty is that by silent consciousness we can’t find where you are.

Sri Aurobindo: All I can say is I am doing the same thing over and over again; only I am doing it each time better.

Sri Aurobindo: Is that? I thought it is quite fresh. The physical layer is a very obstinate thing and it requires to be worked out in detail. You work out one thing then think it is done; something else arises and you have again to go over the same ground. It is not like the mind or the vital where it is easier for the Higher Power to work. Besides there — in the mind and in the vital — you can establish a general law leaving out the details; the physical is not so; it requires constant patience and minutie (detail)

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is a sense of movement and success in the vital but the physical always denies your achievements and repeats the same thing over again, so there is hardly much that can be spoken about it.

Disciple: What are the signs by which one can know that the higher calm has settled in the physical?

Sri Aurobindo: But before the higher calm can settle there, you. must grow conscious of the physical.

Sri Aurobindo: As you have got the consciousness of the mind, of the vital being so the body must get its own consciousness. When that consciousness is present you feel the calm like something solid (substantial) settled like an immovable block which cannot be shaken even by the most material shock (less so by the mental or vital shocks).

Disciple: In your present stage of sahdana where do you stand with regard to the question of Death?

3. My own choice, finding it not possible to do it this time, or by some thing shown to me which would prove it is not possible this time.

Disciple: Sometimes I have a suggestion that if the body can retain the higher calm, power, and ananda, then the body would be free from death.

Sri Aurobindo: That is only the general principle. But that won’t do on the physical plane. You must work out all the details. It is just like the political movements of India where to establish a general rule (or maxim) is regarded as quite sufficient; the details are never worked out.

Disciple: When the vital being has got the calm and power and ananda then sometimes there is an idea that the body is also immortal.

Sri Aurobindo: That is due to the vital casting its own glow upon the physical. The vital Purusha is immortal and that creates a sense of immortality in the body but that is not the real conquest. In the case of Swami Brahmananda (of Chandod) he lived upto 300 years

so that he was practically immune from the action of age but one day a rusty nail pricked him and he died of that slight wound. On the physical plane something you have not worked out turns up and shows that your conquest is not complete. That is why the process takes such a long time. You must establish the higher Consciousness in every atom of the body, otherwise what happens is that something escapes your view in the hidden depth of the lower physical being which is known to the hostile forces and then they can attack through that weak point. They can create a combination of circumstances which would give rise to the thing not worked out and before you can control them they are already beyond control. In that case they can destroy you.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is the nature. That is the arrangement. If the physical were not like that then the thing would have been done much easily and long ago instead of taking Kalpas and Manvantaras. The Sadhana would have been very easy. God does not want it to be easily done.

Disciple: Some time back you told us that this attempt was done several times in the past but on account of various reasons it was not successful. Will it be successful this time or not?

Disciple: But you said that this can be done and this time something will be done.

Sri Aurobindo: But “this can be done” is not the same as “this will be done this time”.

Disciple: No. What he wants is whether you. want to improve upon that statement?

Sri Aurobindo: All I can say is “ask me next August”; this time I am more hopeful than I was last. year. It is

more possible now than it was last year. Last was a very hard year in my sadhana. There was attack from the darkest physical forces on me. This year they are all gone.

Sri Aurobindo: You want me to prophesy? It does not! depend totally upon me; time is about the last thine — 1 one knows. And fixing the limit is more likely to prolong it like “Swaraj in one year”. Besides, a Yogin who is to take part in action is not shown all the things by the Supreme. Only when the universal conditions are ready then all things are shown to him; while one who is detached sees many things more. Also, the Supreme does not decide every detail before the universal conditions are ready when it comes down with an imperative decision. In between, it is all a working of universal forces. For example, take the case of physical disease to which you are prone by nature. When you have worked it out you find the same thing comes up in other forms. You cannot leave it off without working out all details and in each detail you can see only possibilities and moral certainties. Not that the Supreme does not know it all the time; only, it does not interfere till the universal conditions are ready. The decision which the universal forces work out is also the decision of the Supreme.

Disciple: Are the universal conditions fulfilled so far as the physical is concerned?

Sri Aurobindo: The general conditions have been fulfilledl in the case of the physical consciousness; but now the most material level remains and that is the most dangerous.

Sri Aurobindo: Because it is solid, compact, and can refuse or give up its own stuff completely. It is the least open

to reasoning and in dealing with it you require the highest divine Power. Besides, the whole samskdra — established impression — of the whole universe is against your effort. Something from Above has to descend and remove the obstacle.

Disciple: I have an idea that those who go by the gradual way would also, at one time, come to the same conquest of the physical as those who work in the concentrated way.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But those who go by the gradual way may have each time to fight Out the whole thing and even then the difficulty comes up again and again, while in the involved process (which I am following) the work is rendered easy and quick. One blow from the Supreme Force and the thing is done!

Sri Aurobindo: Our Yoga aims at the discovery of the Supramental being, the Supramental world, and the Supramental nature, and their manifestations in life. But we must guard ourselves against certain general mistakes which are likely to arise. People think that certain powers such as Anima, Garima, or the control of the physical functions, and the capacity to cure diseases, constitute the Supramentalised physical. In many cases, these powers are acquired by persons who happen to open themselves consciously, or unconsciously, to the subliminal being, where these powers lie. There are plenty of cases where such powers are seen in persons who have no idea of the Supermind or Yoga.

There is an idea that this Yoga has been attempted times without number in the past, that the Light descended and has withdrawn again and again. This does not seem to be correct. I find that Supramental physical body has not been brought down: otherwise it would have been there. We must not therefore belittle our effort and throw obstacles in the way of its accomplishment.

The time has not yet come to say what would be the nature of the ultimate transformation. What the old yogins manifested in their life was largely due to the control of the vital being over physical functions. Our aim is not this attainment of the vital Siddhi,— the control of the physical substance and functions through vital force. What we are attempting to achieve is a complete transformation of our entire being in all its planes of manifestation. In the old disciplines the goal was not transformation or victory over the physical being. They did not lay any direct hold on it.

Then there is an idea that since everything is One, what we have to do is to realise the One Consciousness and have some experience of it on various planes of our being. This is a mistake due to obsession by Vedantic ideas. It is true that there is the One Consciousness and we have to realise it, but we have not to stop short with that realisation. We have, as I said just now, to transform our entire being.

There is an idea that our yoga is an attempt at conscious evolution. The Spirit is here involved in Matter and appears subject to it. By the process of evolution the vital and the mental being have come into manifest existence here. Our effort is to evolve to the Supermind from mind.

The Tattiriya Upanishad speaks of the physical being taken up into the vital, and that into the mental

and that again into the Supramental and Ananda Consciousness. Another Upanishad says that the man who attains the Supermind escapes through “the door of the Sun”. There is no idea of a conscious descent. upon life after ascending to the Supermind.

But it is possible to regard the process as an involution,— involution of the manifested being into the Truth-Consciousness of the Supermind which descends with the perfection of the same into the mind, into the vital and into the physical being.

We also notice in our Sadhana that there is a movement of ascent. But that is not the whole thing, we have not to rest content merely with the ascent. We have also to descend again and consciously bring down the Supramental Light, Truth and Harmony to govern and transform our nature — that is, our mind, life, and body. There is thus an involution of the lower powers upward into the Truth from which the Spirit descends into Matter and then a manifestation of that Truth in all the nature.

It is not all who can do this. There is an idea that everybody can do this yoga, but that is only partly true. All are not called to do this yoga. It may be said that all men have got a latent capacity for this yoga. But that only helps them up to the point of a certain preparation for the yoga. The vast mental expansion, the difficult long and arduous task of rejecting the lower movements of the vital nature and the still harder task of bringing about a change in the physical being, all this cannot be attempted by all. We want first to transform all our being into the Supramental nature. But that is not all, we have to call down and throw that Power upon the external life and establish the Truth and harmony there also. I have already told you that the time has not yet come to say what would be the

nature of the ultimate transformation. When the time comes it will reveal itself. What is demanded of you is to open yourself more and more to the Truth. As to all the rest, it will work itself out according to the will of the Supreme Ishwara.

Sri Aurobindo: (in Bengali) Amār sādhanā! Ami ki sādhanā korchi? My sadhana — Am I doing sadhana? Ask some other question.

Disciple: From experience of the physical plane till now, do you think that it is possible to bring down the Supermind into the physical plane?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? I would not attempt it if it were not possible. If you mean, by that question, “whether it is possible this time and now,” then that is quite another matter.

Sri Aurobindo: It all depends upon things outside myself. It is to be seen whether the physical plane is ready to receive the Light, for it is not always that the physical plane is ready when the Light descends.

Disciple: When the question was put to you, you said “It is more possible this year than it was last year.”

Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another matter. I could not have used the other expression. I can say now, “It is more possible this year than it was last year.” (All burst into laughter as he evaded the answer).

Sri Aurobindo: I am not joking. There have been manifestations of it now that were not there before. The Power is working more directly on the physical plane.

Sri Aurobindo: You can give the certainty, instead of me, I can’t. You can see for yourself.

Sri Aurobindo: Then, you want to throw the whole burden on me and evade your responsibility?

Sri Aurobindo: Well, you want the truth from me and not a pleasant falsehood, I suppose. I have been feeling this very strongly for the last two days, that is why I say this. It is not a personal question, I am speaking of the general atmosphere. I find that the more the Light and Power are coming down the greater is the resistance. You yourself can see that there is something pressing down. You can also see that there is the tremendous resistance.

Sri Aurobindo: Now that we have all come to the lower vital and the physical planes where the struggle is most acute I am speaking from there and not from any higher standpoint. (Short pause: then to a Disciple: ) No, K — you can’t evade your responsibility. (laughter).

I am not doing an isolated yoga. When I wrote that much — abused sentence about humanity in The Yoga and its Objects there was a truth behind it though I was not conscious of it. It is true that my yoga is not for humanity; but it is not for myself either; of course, my attaining to the Siddhi is the preliminary condition to others being able to attain it. If I were seeking my own liberation and perfection, my yoga would have been finished long ago.

Disciple: You said in your speech in the afternoon that the physical plane had not been worked upon by anyone before.

Sri Aurobindo: I did not say that no attempt had been made in the past. Attempts were made but nothing stable was attained on the physical level; nothing fundamental was established. If it were established, the thing would be there, however partial the achievement.

You see, however imperfect the achievement, it is there in the Mind and you find it, so also in the Vital. But you find nothing like that in the physical plane.

Disciple: It means that the necessary atmosphere for bringing down the Supermind on the physical plane is to be created?

Sri Aurobindo: That is the whole attempt. You ought to help in it by creating the necessary condition, if you want it to be done this time.

(pointing to himself) There is the centre. You can take from it. But we must be all on one side if we want to succeed. If you give room to hostile suggestions you retard your own progress and also the general advancement.

Sri Aurobindo: You must have an integral aspiration for the truth. It is true, of course, that there come times in

the Sadhana when the mind gets depressed, and the higher Presence is veiled, the knowledge obscured. At that time it is the aspiration and the faith — what Ramakrishna balls “blind faith” — that supports one. That faith is not really speaking “blind”. It is the memory of the soul. If faith is necessary to Couẻ out a disease, much more is it necessary to bring down the Supermind. If I had lost faith I would have given up the effort long ago.

Disciple: Is the transition from the Mind to the Supermind more radical in its nature than that from the Supermind to the planes above it?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by that? Do you mean it as decisive a step as from Ignorance to Knowledge?

Sri Aurobindo: You see, the Mind works on the basis of division. It always takes the truth piecemeal,— one aspect at a time and acts as if a part were the whole. Now this very basis is false.

The Supermind is unity and on the basis of that unity it knows the division. It is the stage nearest to us towards the Divine. Of course, it is also working in the Mind. But in the Mind you seek and find truth partially. Mind is an effort at knowing, but not knowledge. Mind only represents, it cannot attain. It cannot fully express the truth.

On the vital plane also the Supermind works. There its working is Instinct, a precise but covert working which is nearest to the Supermind. But the Supermind is something quite different. You may say it is something automatic though not in the mechanical sense. You can say it is “self-active” Truth. Once you attain to the Supermind you can escape

when she put too many questions, “Don’t ask many questions, otherwise your head will fall off”.

Disciple: If this conquest of the physical plane is once achieved, would it mean the defeat of the hostile forces in cases where there might be no opening to the yoga?

Sri Aurobindo: You come back to the same question of humanity in another form. That is to say, you want to know whether this victory would mean universal a victory. Well, let us wait and establish the thing on the physical plane first, then we shall see.

Disciple: (On behalf of X) How are the universal conditions more ready now for the coming down of the Supermind than they were before?

Sri Aurobindo: Firstly, the knowledge of the physical worlds has increased so much that it is on the verge of breaking its own bounds.

Secondly, there is an attempt all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and the inner vital and even the outer and the inner physical. Men are becoming more “psychic”.

Thirdly, the vital is trying to lay its hold on the physical as it never did before. It is always the sign that whenever the higher Truth is coming down, it: throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as increase in the number of persons who go mad, earth-quakes etc. Also, the world is becoming more united on account of the discoveries of modern science, the aeroplane, the railways, the wireless telegraph etc. Such a union is the condition for the highest Truth coming down and it is also our difficulty.

Fourthly; the rise of persons who wield tremendous vital influence over large numbers of men.

These are some of the signs to show that the universal condition may be more ready now. Of course we do not know anything about the conditions of past attempts. But in so far as we can see now there are conditions to warrant the attempt

Disciple: Do you consider the knowledge of the world-forces a necessary part of the yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes! You have to deal with world-forces because they make themselves felt, especially the hostile ones; and so also you have to know the forces that make for help. Even when one is doing individual Sadhana, these universal forces make themselves felt. Of course, as you develop, their aspect changes completely. The movement of these world-forces does not begin on the lower planes. It begins high above. All decisions are made high above, it is true, but they are not allowed to be known to the planes to which they concern. A veil is interposed, and each plane is left free to make its own decision. The struggle is left to be decided over again by the contending forces. It is only when the decisive turn has been taken that the highest decision is made known. You can help the greater knowledge to grow into you by trying to get the lesser knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, I did not say it seriously, though there was something behind which was serious. (All laughed)

Disciple: This is the Supramental reconciliation of the opposites. (Laughter again).

Sri Aurobindo: Well, you can help the attempt by one-pointed aspiration. You should reject everything that Stands in the way of fulfilling this ideal. But, if instead of doing that, you go on accepting the suggestions of the hostile forces and repeat their mantrams which would give you or give others the idea that it is not possible then you help them.

I shall say a few words today about the 15th of August. The question was one that was recently put to me and I gave a negative answer in order to remove — certain mental and conventional notions on the matter.

I shall now speak about the positive side of the matter. There is another side to it and if there were not that other side there would be no use in this celebration. I shall not refer to the personal aspect for very obvious reasons, but I shall say something in general with regard to what it can and ought to mean in regard to the yoga, the common object we all have in view.

What that object,— that yoga — is you know in principle. It is the bringing down of a Consciousness, a Power, a Light, a Reality that is other than the consciousness which satisfies the ordinary man upon earth: a Consciousness, a Power and Light of Truth,

a Divine Reality which is destined to raise the earth-consciousness and transform everything here.

That cannot take place unless there is a decision from Above. But, also, it cannot be unless the earth-consciousness itself is in some part of it, in some of those who dwell here upon these lower planes, ready to receive. Once this Consciousness, the Power descends it is there for all times and everyday for those who are willing and fit to receive it.

But we have attached a special importance to this day and it is justified if we live in the light of the Truth it symbolises. For this day we can fix a mark in the stage in the individual and general progress. It is a day which ought to be a day of consecration, of self-examination and a preparation for future advance, if possible, for the reception of a special Power which would carry on the work of advance.

This can only be done in each individually if he takes up the true attitude and lives on that day under the right conditions.

That was what I meant when I spoke the other day. It is we who can make it a decisive day in this sense, and it is we who can help to fulfil it.

There must be a consecration from beforehand, and a looking inward on the past to see how far we have reached, what in us is ready, what in us has not yet changed and has yet to be changed, what stands behind waiting for a complete transformation; what still resists and what is still obscure. There must be the aspiration, a calling down of the Power to effect the change which we see to be necessary.

All this we cannot do if we throw ourselves out on this day, but only by an intense concentration so that the internal being is ready, and turned upwards to receive the Light. In proportion as we admit an

externalising movement we disturb the higher working and waste the energy needed for the work of inner change. Whatever is done other than on ordinary days should be done either as a part of the movement itself or as something which is held on the outskirts of the being and cannot disturb the inner movement. And all the customary circumstances of the day must be used for advance.

And if you came to me in the morning, it should not be in fulfilment of a customary ceremony but with your souls and minds prepared to receive. If you listen to me now and if it is merely something that touches your mental interest and satisfies a mental interest I had rather remain silent. But if it touches somewhere the inner being, the soul, then only this day has a utility or a purpose. And the meditation too ought to be under such conditions that even if nothing decisive descends there would be a certain infiltration the results of which would come afterwards.

That is the one meaning of the 15th of August from the point of view of our yoga.

As to taking stock of the work, where you are and the work, how far it is done, etc., certain things ought to be remembered. You know them with the mind.

First, remember that what are the objects of other yogas are for us only the first stages, or first conditions. In the former ways of yoga men were satisfied if they could feel the Brahmic Consciousness or the cosmic consciousness or some descent of Light and Power, some intimation of the Infinite.

It was thought sufficient if the mind got certain spiritual experiences and underwent partial transformation and the vital being was in contact with it.

They sought for a static condition and considered release as the final goal, and final aim.

To realise all this, to be open to the Infinite and Universal Power, to receive its intimations and to have experiences, to completely go beyond the ego, to realise the Universal Mind, Universal Soul, the Universal Spirit, that is only the first condition.

We have to call down this greater Consciousness directly into the vital being and into the physical being, so that the supreme calm and universality will be there in all its fullness from top to bottom.

If this cannot be done then the first condition of transformation is not fulfilled.

Second thing we have to know and remember is that nothing is perfectly done unless all is perfectly done. It is not sufficient to open the Mind and the Vital Being and leave the Physical being to its obscurity.

So in the transformation also, mind cannot be transformed unless the Vital Being is transformed. And if the Vital Being is not transformed nothing can be realized; because it is (he Vital Being that realizes. So if the mind is only partially changed and if the Vital Being is open and also partially changed it is not sufficient for our purpose. Because the whole range of the Vital Being cannot be done unless the Physical Being also is opened and changed, for the divine Vital cannot realize itself in an unfitting environmental life.

And it is not enough for the inner Physical Being to be changed if the external man is not transformed. In this process of yoga there is a whole totality and each depends upon the other. Therefore to stop short may be a preparation for another life but it is not the victory. All has to be changed before anything permanently can be changed. The third thing to remember is that if all is to be changed and done then there must be complete surrender

It means there must be no reservation in any part of the being; any compromise with old customary thoughts and human ways of doing things. Wherever anything is reserved, it means the Truth is not accepted and we shall commit, again, the old mistake of partial achievement and transformation. We should leave no field for the indulgence of ignorance.

For us there can be no such theories, no such compromise between falsehood and Truth; between the Supreme and the Lower Nature.

It is remembering these things that we have to take stock of our work. To see how much is to be done, not in any spirit of pessimism because the way is long and hard and cannot be done by a miracle. It can only be accomplished by a large and thorough movement. Each step you have to take as a mark, as an encouragement, for a step towards the Beyond. On one side no lack of resolution and the zeal for the victory to be won, on the other no hasty impatience nor depression. But the calm certainty for the Divine Will,— and the calm will that “It shall be done in us” and the aspiration that “it may be done for us so that it may be done for the world.”

Disciple: What would you say this time about the success of our efforts? Last time you said that you were certain about it.

Disciple (to the first one): Why do you put a question in that way? You can put the question anew on your own account without referring to the past.

Disciple: From the general conditions prevailing now, can you not say whether you are sure or not?

Sri Aurobindo: I can say that I am morally sure but practically not sure. I am not sure practically because the material world is unrepentant. The chief obstacle which may prove to be insurmountable is the resistance of the material world.

Sri Aurobindo: 1 mean, that the material world does not care a jot for the Divine or the Divine Life.

Sri Aurobindo: Its impossibility of opening to something high, of conceiving something different from what it is accustomed to. I am referring to the obscurity and stupidity of the human being, if I may say so. When I speak of the resistance of the material world, I do not mean the external material but the subtle material. There is the subtle and the external material and when I say that Matter is impenetrable, I mean that the subtle material has not accepted the Truth, the material mind has not accepted the higher truth. The cells of the material body have a consciousness of their own and that consciousness has to open itself to the Truth. But the material mind does not believe in the Divine possibility of transformation. And as I already said for us nothing is done unless all is done.

Sri Aurobindo: Because I see more and more power coming down into the physical and the physical being is showing signs of awakening.

Disciple: But we know that once the Truth is accepted by the mind, then it presses upon the vital being and

opens it to the higher Truth. And when the vital hi opened, it presses upon the physical being. So now asT you say that the power is coming down on the physical plane, does it not follow that it will overcome the resistance of the material plane in course of time and the rest will follow naturally?

Disciple: Is there no other obstacle to the success except the resistance of Matter?

Disciple: Does it mean that no obstacle will arise from the Asuric forces? I do not mean the Asuric vital world itself but the obstacles from the physical world backed by the Asuric.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. All this resistance of Matter is backed by the Asuric forces. But if Matter itself yields, then those forces do not count. I do not mean there would be no difficulty from them, but what I mean is that it would have only a secondary importance.

Disciple: What are the conditions to be fulfilled before the resistance can be overcome and have we any responsibilities in fulfilling them?

Sri Aurobindo: Conditions! It is more than I can say (Pause). You would not understand it even if I were to say it.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, the condition is that if man could open a direct connection with the world of the Gods, then only it would be possible.

Sri Aurobindo: It may have accepted in my case but that proves nothing. It does not mean that it is established in the universal or that it is fundamentally and radically changed.

Sri Aurobindo: No, as yet there is no decisive sign of any change; but as more and more Power is descending into the physical, I may say that I am morally sure that the material will yield.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by laws? What you call laws are mere habits. If you change your habits you still remain yourself.

Disciple: Can a few persons by their Sadhana change the laws of the material world?

Sri Aurobindo: We do not intend to change the external material being. Only, in certain cases where the man is open to the Higher Power, this change would take place and not in everybody’s case. Its success would not mean success for all and equally for all.

Disciple: Is the attitude of humanity as a whole a factor for success or failure in the effort?

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, it does count for something, but it does not radically affect the issue.

Disciple: What is the difference between the physical mind and the material mind?

Sri Aurobindo: As I have not got the same inspiration of the subject, I shall ask X. to explain it (a pause).

I spoke about four things in the physical: (1) physical mind, (2) Physical Vital, (3) Matter proper and (4) The Supermind in the physical.

The “physical mind” is, so to say, that end of mental being which comes in contact with the physical world. It is mind limited by matter, working without the help of ideas, looking only to the physical aspect of the world and taking things as they are. It does not go beyond that view. It depends upon the evidence and knowledge of the physical plane or the knowledge of the external world, it depends upon the evidence of the senses.

The “physical vital” is life limited by the material body,— the life-force bound up in matter. It is life moving in the nervous system. It cannot exist apart from the material body. It is quite different from the vital being proper with its relative freedom. It is life subject to the laws of matter. There is a tremendous power in matter also, but that is not life-force. Life-force is quite apart from the material world. It exists by itself and for itself and does not limit itself down to the material conditions. To the vital being, nothing, however fanciful and even idiotic, seems impossible. That is the grandeur of the vital being. When Napoleon said, “Nothing is impossible, erase the word ‘impossible’ from the dictionary”, it was the vital being that was speaking through him. And it is true that the vital plane does not admit anything as impossible. It does not reject the higher possibilities as the material plane does.

Then comes the material (world) proper. It is what the Europeans call the “Inconscient”. But this matter which they say is “Inconscient” has a tremendous force behind it. In fact it would be the decisive factor in this effort. If it can’t be done this time, it has to be done some day,— at some other time.

Disciple: If an atom were broken up, so much energy would be liberated that some scientists say it can blow up the whole world. And merely changing the position of the atoms in a substance, the properties of the substance entirely change. Is this energy you speak of in matter a form of the same that the scientists speak of?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. What they know is only one aspect of it. For it is not merely force but has a consciousness of its own, also it can accept and reject things.

The material is dull, inconscient. It does not want to change. It does not want to establish anything. It is the same under all the material conditions, obeying the laws of matter. Even up till now in the process of evolution nature has taken thousands and thousands of years to effect this little change in matter. And even then it has been effected always by some pressure from above, i.e. from the mental or the vital planes, but not by Matter’s own inherent power or strength or consent.

When the vital began to press on the physical (material) it could not carry out its ideas of possibilities and impossibilities there. It established a kind of understanding (compromise) with matter and it had to accept the limitations of material life.

Disciple: You said that to overcome the resistance of the material plane is possible if one can open a direct connection with the plane of the Gods. I& there a method of attaining to that plane or does it come of its own accord or is it done for one by the Higher Power?

Sri Aurobindo: You have to get rid of the European mentality in you for that. All of you are semi-demi Europeans in your mentality.

It requires a definite decision to go beyond the mind and giving up human ways of looking at things. You must avoid the two opposite mistakes of accepting the vital powers as true gods and of being bound by the materialistic attitude.

Disciple: But you said that all decisions are taken Above already before they are accomplished here in this world.

Disciple: Then the decision as to whether the Truth is going to succeed on the material plane or not must have already been made?

Sri Aurobindo: It may be. But it may not be made known to you. Even if you know it, you have to work in the plane of ignorance. Who can say? We do not know.

Disciple: The first person plural may not know, but I am asking about the first person singular.

Disciple: If the decision is there, then it is also decided; whether it will succeed this time or not.

Sri Aurobindo: I can say because I know the decision there, and there is not the slightest shadow of doubt that it

will one day succeed; but the question is whether it will succeed through us and our endeavours.

Sri Aurobindo: It may retire or it may wait. The question is whether; the physical plane is ready to accept the light. Each time up till now it has not accepted the Truth when it came.

Sri Aurobindo: We mean by the European materialism the attitude that takes matter as the fundamental basis of evolution and the impossibility of accepting what it is not accustomed to.

I am not running down the European mind. It is fine in its own way, but we are trying to effect a decisive change in the physical being. The opposite mistake is also made by those Europeans, who have left the materialistic formula binding down the mind to the acceptance of the laws of the physical being as final, the mistake of accepting the vital powers as the true gods. For example, the people who do psychic research, mediumistic experiments, automatic writing, spirit communication etc. are the people.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by a law? What are called laws are mere habits of the physical being, as I have already told you.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary that it should change. It would involve a change in the possibilities and capacities of functions of the physical being. It would not mean a change in the universal physical. It would take place only in the case of persons who are open

to the Higher Power. Of course, it would be a miracle if the impenetrable were penetrated.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the material mind that requires the miracles. It believes in the miracles of the past but not in those of the future. It is satisfied when the miracle has become habitual.

The talk turned to the Andamans and the punishment of prisoners and jail-discipline.

Disciple: We were the first to resort to it and it had some effect because, I think, it was new there. Then batch after batch tried it but without much result.

Disciple: The status of political prisoners, better food, ventilation, clothing.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the difficulty. This kind of passive resistance fails to bring pressure upon the other party after some time. At the most it may make your opponent morally uncomfortable,— that too if he has a certain kind of temperament.

Disciple: It was fun and a tragedy to see X flouting every item of jail discipline! He went on hunger-strike first, then remained naked and refused to go to weighing balance. The Jail staff used to put him in a gunny bag and weigh — even then the bag used to jump! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: It. was with great difficulty he was persuaded to take food. His health is completely ruined!!

Sri Aurobindo referred to Sir Moropant Joshi of Nagpur. He asked a Disciple: “Do you remember him?”

Sri Aurobindo: I met him in Bombay when we took the vow with Dr. Deshmukh to secure the independence of India. He was also one of those who took the oath and soon afterwards turned round. When I was going to Surat to attend the Congress I got down at Nagpur and had to give a lecture in the theatre there and I saw Moropant sitting there on one of the front benches gaping at me!

There was talk about the Franco-Riff war,— about the retreat of the French and Spanish armies.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you believe Reuter’s is an infallible agency? Then Lenin must have died seven or eight times, and Anvar Pasha more than six times! (laughter)

Very often it serves the interests of one or the other of the big powers. Do you know how they supplied inforniation during the war to the outer world?

There was a German air-raid — probably at Scarborough. The news given out was that a few buildings were destroyed, some few men wounded. Whereas as a matter of fact, after the war the truth was found: 800 men were killed, many more wounded and three streets destroyed!

Disciple: In the army in France we used our wireless apparatus for getting news from all the fronts; even there, it was lying pure and simple.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you think that official figures are all quite correct? It is a huge machine for manufacturing lies!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they must give out authentic lies! All the news that was given out officially about Riga was, as everybody knows, a lie from top to bottom.

The talk turned to an organisation in Bengal in which the organiser made a declaration that it would use hand — made yarn for its looms without really intending to do so, or with a view to set up one or two such looms and take monitary help from the Khadi-board, keeping the rest of the looms running with machine-made yarn.

Sri Aurobindo: We, in India, lack character; it will take us long to have character.

Disciple: Then, where is the hope for India? The other day you said that India was suffering from vital depression and was afraid of new thought.

Sri Aurobindo: I did not say we have no minds or brains. I said we have no character; character has nothing to do with the intellect.

Disciple: But then these nations that are free, have they all got the best virtues in them?

Sri Aurobindo: I did not say that. But they work, they act, we can’t; we begin one thing today and leave it tomorrow.

Disciple: I think freedom will come when it can no longer be prevented. At present much of what we do is speech, Pramatha

Nath Chowdhury in an article says “Now-a-days it has become a fashion to say in speeches — These times are not for speech but for action” and on that there is a speech! (laughter)

Disciple: Why all the leaders today are only speaking; and Devajāti the divine race, was born after speaking and Satyajuga began by speech!

Sri Aurobindo: Sometimes people get freedom by bluffing and we know bluffing well by this time; or maybe, God’s grace can give freedom to India!

Sri Aurobindo was not disposed to talk this evening. A Disciple put a question about immunity from physical diseases by Hatha yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: In Hatha yoga you are all right so long as you continue the practice. As soon as you leave it off you are liable to attacks.

In Raja yoga also you have to continue Pranayama

once you begin it. My own experience is that when I was practising Pranayama at Baroda I had excellent health. But when I went to Bengal and left Pranayama, I was attacked by all sorts of illnesses which nearly carried me off.

Disciple: Is there life on the Moon? You said that the life-wave travels from planet to planet. Is this statement founded on experience?

Sri Aurobindo: No. I have no experience of other planets. I did not say “the life-wave travels” — I only said it is mere reaction that may have travelled. You don’t mean to say that the earth is the only planet with life and others are only lifeless ones.

Disciple: Conditions on the Moon and other planets for sustaining life are not propitious.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? The same conditions must not be there. There can be other conditions and other forms!

Disciple: Uranus-Sirus is a double planet. The matter of one has fifty thousand times the density of water. We cannot form an idea of such matter, but it exists there in that form!

Sri Aurobindo: It is one of the stupid limitations of the human mind that nothing can exist which does not agree with its preconceived ideas of conditions. Fire-walking, it maintains, is impossible. Not only it is possible, it is done. It does not matter in what way.

Sri Aurobindo: Whether they exist or not need not trouble you. I have written at enough length on it. Philosophy

is the art of talking intelligently about things you know nothing about.

Sri Aurobindo: How does he know? All philosophy that is mental is of very little use.

Sri Aurobindo: “Me” existence! What do you mean? If you had, the experience of Being you would know it is not nothing. “Mere” etymologically means “pure”: Being is pure existence. Much of present day philosophy is only a play of words and ideas, it is mental gymnastics without any experience behind. In India there was always connection between philosophy and knowledge. True knowledge cannot do without experience, as true science can’t do without experiment. Indian philosophy is mental and intellectual but generally it takes its stand on some experience. For instance, die Upanishads.

Sri Aurobindo: Because it was by an Adesh — command from Above — I was asked to come here. When I was leaving Bombay for Calcutta I asked Lele what I should do regarding my Sadhana. He kept silent for some time [probably waiting to hear a voice from the heart] and replied, “Meditate at a fixed time and hear the voice in the heart.”

I did not hear the voice from the heart, but a different voice and I dropped meditation at a fixed time because meditation was going on all the time. When Lele came to Calcutta and heard about it, he said that the devil had caught hold of me. I said, “If it is the devil, I will follow him.”

Disciple: People say that “Yogic Sadhan” was written by the being of Keshab Sen?

Sri Aurobindo: Keshab Sen? When I was writing it, every time at the beginning and at the end the image of Ram Mohan Roy came before me. So perhaps, Ram Mohan has been changed to Keshab Sen.

Do you know the origin of the name “Uttara Yogi?”

Sri Aurobindo: There was a famous Yogi in the South who while dying said to his disciples that a Purna Yogi from the North would come down to the South and he would be known by his three sayings. The three sayings were those I had written to my wife. A Zamindar — disciple of that Yogi — found me out and bore the cost of the book “Yogic Sadhan.”

Disciple: Tagore never spoke at any time about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda except recently when he wrote a very ordinary poem on Ramakrishna during his centenary. He used to tell girls that Ramakrishna used very often to deride women saying “Kamini Kanchan” are the roots of bondage and still women worshipped him.

Sri Aurobindo: I understand that Ramakrishna used to say “Kama Kanchana”. When the division came after his death one party said that he never uttered “Kamini” but “Kama”. I don’t think there was anyone in Brahmo Samaj with spiritual realization. Dwijendra Nath had something in him and Shiva Nath Shastri too and perhaps Keshab Sen. Bejoy Goswami ceased to be a Brahmo.

Disciple: It is said that Christ used to heal simply by a touch. Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? There are many instances of such cures. Of course, faith is necessary. Christ himself said “Thy faith has made thee whole.”

Sri Aurobindo: No, cure can be done without faith, especially when one does not know what is being done. Faith

is above the mind so that any discussion or dispute spoils the action of the faith.

Disciple: I knew also such instances of cure or help by faith. When name to see you first, you told me to remember you in my difficulties. As I returned I did so and I passed through all the difficulties, but as soon as I came here I heard many things from Sadhaks and did not get the same result. I thought, perhaps, I was not able to open myself to you.

Sri Aurobindo: That is called simple faith, or as some call it, “blind faith.” When Ramakrishna was asked about faith, he said, “all faith is blind otherwise there is no faith.” He was quite right.

Disciple: Is it because there is something in the nature of environmental influence that doubt comes and one does not get the same result as before?

Sri Aurobindo: Both; the physical mind has these things, doubt, etc. and they come up at one time or the other. And by contact with other people also faith gets obscured. I knew a shocking instance in the Ashram. A truthful man came here. A Sadhak told him that speaking of the truth always is a superstition. One must be free to say what one likes. And then there is another instance of a Sadhak who said that sex indulgence is no hindrance to yoga, it can be allowed, and everyone must have his Shakti. When such ideas are prevalent no wonder that they cast bad influence on others.

Sri Aurobindo: I thought of that but it is not possible. Mother at one time tried to impose some restrictions and regulations but it did not work. One has to change from within. There are, of course, other yogic systems which have such strict regulations. Buddhism is unique

in that respect. There is a school in France [Labratte?] which enjoins strict silence.

Sri Aurobindo: It can be good provided one sincerely keeps to it. For instance, in that school in France, people who enter there know what they want and so keep to the regulations that are meant to help them in achieving their aim.

The world has to change; — people here are epitomes of the world. Each one represents a type of humanity and if one type is conquered that means a great victory for the work. And for this change a constant will is required. If that is there, lots of things can be done for the Sadhak as they were done.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is when the Sadhana came down in the physical and the subconscient that things became very difficult. I myself had to struggle for two years; for the subconscient is absolutely inert like stone. Though my mind was quite awake above, it could not exert and influence down below. It is a Herculean labour, for when one enters there, it is a sort of an unexplored continent. Previous Yogis came down to the vital. If I had been made to see it before, probably, I would have been less enthusiastic about it. That is the instance of blind faith. The ancients were quite right perhaps in leaving the physical, but if I had left it there, the real work would have remained undone. And once it is conquered, it becomes easy for people who come after me, which is what is meant by realization of one in all.

Disciple: Not only easy but like a baby we want to be carried about. Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo: When did he say that and what did he mean by that? A Yogi has always to be vigilant, especially in the early part of one’s Sadhana. Otherwise all one has gained can come down like a thud. People here usually don’t make Sadhana the one part of their life. They have two parts: one, the internal and other external, which goes on with ordinary movements, social contacts, etc. Sadhana must be made the one part of the being.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it was when Sadhana was going on in the vital and when it is that, everything is joy, peace, etc. and if I had stopped there, we could have started a big religion, or something like it. But the real work would have been left undone.

Sri Aurobindo: No, to withdraw from the physical atmosphere. If I had to do the work the Mother is doing, I would have hardly time to do my own work, besides its being a tremendous labour.

Disciple: Vishudhanand of Banaras is said to be able to produce all sorts of perfumes, scents, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: It is difficult to know if they (perfumes) are all materialization or subtle perfumes projected into the physical or on the senses.

Paul Brunton saw always some pressure accompanying him. When he saw my photo, it had nothing to resemble it but when he saw me at the Darshan, he at once recognized me as that pressure.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the physical but the vital body separating itself from the body. At one time I thought physical Siddhi was impossible. But in Alipore jail, once I found that my body had occupied a position which it was physically impossible to have. Then again I was practicing to raise my hands and keep them suspended without any muscular control. Once in that raised condition of hands I fell off to sleep. The warder saw this condition and reported that I had died. Authorities came and found me quite alive. I told them he was a fool.

There is a French author Joules Romain. He is a medical man and a mystic. He can see with other parts of the body with eyes closed. He says, “Eyes are only a specialized organ.” Other parts can as well be trained to see. But scientists refused to admit his demonstration.

Sri Aurobindo: It—the descent is the experience of many Sadhaks even outside our Yoga. An old Sanyasi of the Ramakrishna Mission saw a flood of light descending and when he asked he was told it was all the work of the devil and the whole experience stopped afterwards.

In Maharshi’s case he has received the thing in the heart and has worked with it, so he does not feel the descent.

Sri Aurobindo: That may be true from the side of the

Divine but the man must try to fulfil the condition under which alone grace can {{0}}act.[[In this respect Sir Aurobindo’s writing in The Mother was quoted by a disciple where he lays down that “the grace will work under the conditions of the Truth, not under those imposed upon it by falsehood.”]]

Disciple: Grace is grace, but one need not sit with folded hands. What is achieved is by the divine grace.

Sri Aurobindo: Grace is of course unconditional, but it is for men to fulfil the conditions. It is as if man was continually spilling from a cup in which something was being poured.

Disciple: Is there no justice for the misdeeds of people like S, V and N? Surely they will have to bear the consequences of their actions? And yet how is it these people succeed in life?

Sri Aurobindo: Justice in this life? May not be. Most probably not. But justice is not what most people believe it to be. It is said that virtuous people will have happiness, prosperity etc. in another life while in this life they have the opposite effects. In that case, the people you speak of must have been virtuous in their previous life. There is justice in the sense that the virtuous and pious people advance towards Sattwic nature while the contrary one goes down the scale of humanity and become more and more Asuric. That is what I have said in the “Arya.”

At this moment Mother came in and asked what was the subject of talk. Sri Aurobindo replied that X was asking about justice,—

whether it exists. After some moments’ pause Mother said:

Mother: Of course, there is justice; these people suffer, they are tormented and not happy within. But that unhappiness does not seem to change them. They go from worse to worse; yes; but in some cases as the divine pressure goes on acting, at some time, especially during some impending catastrophe, suddenly some change takes place in these people. We saw a number of people like that. e.g. those who were trying to persecute Sri Aurobindo.

Disciple: You have said in your Prayers that justice exists. One cannot avoid the law of Karma except by Divine Grace.

Sri Aurobindo: N. may be a scoundrel but he has capacity and cleverness and so he will surely succeed. It is that capacity and cleverness that succeeds in life not virtues etc.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, it is cleverness or you may say, misuse of cleverness. But I don’t say that cleverness will not have its consequences, but at the same time it is these qualities that succeed in life.

Mother: It is because the human mind arranges and combines things and does not leave any room for the Grace. For instance, when one is cured of a disease or passes an examination, he thinks it is due to medicine or some chance. He does not see that in between, or behind, there may be Grace acting on him. Is it not so?

Mother: If you don’t recognize the Grace how can it work? It is as if you had shut your doors against it, Of course, it can work below, underneath so to say.

Mother: It does, especially in those people who have been

predestined for some thing; but if one recognizes and expresses gratitude, it acts more forcefully and quickly.

Mother: No, I know many ignorant people having the Grace expressing a deep gratitude rising from the heart.

Disciple: We would like the Grace to act like a Mother feeding a hungry baby, giving things when it needs etc.

Mother: But the Grace does not work according to human demands or conceptions. It has its own law and way. How can it? Very often what seems to be a great blow or calamity at the present moment may appear to be a great blessing after ten years and people say that their real life began after that.

Sri Aurobindo: Grace is unconditional but at the same time, how will it work if a man is throwing away the Grace, or does not recognize it? It is like a man spilling away from the cup in which something is being poured. Mother said that she is interested to see the reactions with the two fellows. It may have different results in both. She can’t say how it will be different.

Sri Aurobindo: No, difference of quality also. One is more stupid and blind than the other who knows consciously what he is aiming at. So the former has less power to harm.

Mother: (Looked very amused and said) Do you think so? When a man turns his back he has no chance, no possibility. One who is given a chance may have a possibility.

Disciple: The law of Karma according to Jainism is inexorable. Even the Tirthankars can’t escape it, and have to pay in exact mathematical proportion.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a great thing. But too wonderful and mathematical to be true. e.g. a son who lived for a short time cost a great deal of money to the father for his ill-health. It was said that the father had been the debtor to the son in previous life and the son realized exactly the same amount of money which he had lent by means of his illness and died. (laughter)

Disciple: There is what is Nikachit Karma or Utkata Karma which cannot be avoided. It is like a knot that cannot be untied. It is like a silk thread tied and burnt.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be this Utkata Karma that brought about the accident (to his foot).

Disciple: What is incomprehensible is the unmerited suffering of the physical consciousness in your case.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know it is unmerited? Perhaps it was to give me knowledge of what intense pain is. I had ordinary pains before which I could turn into Ananda. But this was intense. I never had the experience when it came suddenly and abruptly, I could not change it into Ananda. When it became of steady nature I could. Besides, we shall see afterwards the full significance. Of course, I accept it as a part of the battle.

Sri Aurobindo: Don’t ask me the question. It is just what I can’t know, for, immediately I say something the hostile forces would at once rush to prevent it. That is why I don’t want to prophesy. Not that things are not known, or possibilities not seen. For instance, there are things about which I had definitely said. But where it

is a question of possibilities, I don’t tie myself to that chain of possibilities. For if I do that I commit myself in advance to certain lines of movement and the result of it may not be what I want, and I won’t be able to bring down that for which I am striving, it may not be the highest but something partial. But plenty of people can prophesy. That capacity is common among Yogis. When I was arrested, my maternal-grand-aunt asked Swami Bhaskaranand, “What will happen to our Aurobindo?” He replied, “The Divine Mother has taken him in her arms; nothing will happen to him. But he is not your Aurobindo. He is world’s Aurobindo and the world will be filled with his perfume.”. Another time I was taken by Jatin Banerji to a Swami Narayan Jyotishi who foretold about my three trials, white enemies and also my release. When my horoscope was shown he said that there was some mistake about time and when the time was corrected he replied, “Oh, the lead is turned into gold now.”

Disciple: Have you had any prophesy in dreams? Many people get dreams or vision of coming events.

Disciple: I know the instance of A’s daughter-in-law who saw him carried to cemetery and exactly two hours after he died of heart failure.

Disciple: Even without knowing the person concerned can one prophesy like that? i.e. like Bhaskaranand?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is an intuitive power. I once tried to see a man who was to be elected and saw a figure seated in the office but quite different and unknown, not the one elected. After some time a quarrel took place between my brother-in-law and a Government official and he was called. But by mistake “Bose”

became “Ghose”, and I had to go and see the man. I found the same man of my vision sitting as the Governor and I was much surprised.

On another occasion a friend of X. (V. Ramaswamy Aiyanger) was coming to see me and I wanted to have a vision of the man. I saw him as having clean shaven head, bull-dog face; but when he came, I found his appearance quite different, regular South Indian Brahmin features. But curiously enough, exactly after two years I saw that man had changed to what I had seen of him in vision. These things are thrown out from the subtle world to the surface consciousness. There is another instance; I was a great tea addict and could not do any work without a cup of tea. The management of tea was in charge of my brother-in-law. He used to bring the tea at any time he woke up from sleep. One day though I had much work to do I was thinking, “When will he bring tea?” “Why does he not come?” and looked at the watch when exactly, at the very moment, the tea was brought. I had made a rule never to ask anything from anybody.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the cells can have peace, joy, etc. and when they are quite conscious, they can throw out the opposing forces. When peace descends in the physical it is a great force for cure.

Sri Aurobindo: That is natural peace which is more than quietude. But there is a positive peace which one knows and feels. Truth also can descend in the physical, and also Power, but very few can bear Power. Light also descends. I remember a disciple telling his Guru about the descent of Light in him.

The Guru said, “The devil has caught hold of you”, and from that time the disciple lost everything.

There is an infinite sea of peace, ananda, above the head; if one is in contact with it one can get them always.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? Thoughts and suggestions come to me from every side and I don’t refuse them. I accept them and see what they are. But what you call “thinking” that I never do. Thinking in that sense had ceased long ago since I had that experience with Lele. Thoughts, as I said, come to me from all sides and from above and the transmitting mind remains quiet, or it enlarges to receive them. True thoughts come in this way. You can’t think out such thoughts, what Mother calls “mental-constructions.”

Sri Aurobindo: No, it was directly transmitted into the pen. It is a great relief to get out of that responsibility.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t mean responsibility in general but that of thinking about everything. Some thoughts are given or reflected from outside. It is not that I don’t ask for knowledge. When I want knowledge I call for it. The Higher faculty sees thoughts as if written on a wall.

The Mother came at 5-55 and meditated till after 7-05. It is difficult to say whether the feast of silent meditation was more precious than the conversation which happened to take place after Mother left for evening meditation.

Disciple: I am trying hard Sir, for the last three — fourths of an hour but I have not succeeded. Many unwanted thoughts come.

Sri Aurobindo: Some extraordinary non-sense like perpetual attendance on the Maharajah or successor to Mussolini?

Disciple: No sir, the thought of the Maharajah comes very rarely. But why does not one succeed in meditating even after so many trials? The last time I had fine meditation was when Dr. N. came from Madras.

Sri Aurobindo: But I see my friend N. at once bends his head down and I believe he is merged in Sachchidananda.

Sri Aurobindo: But there is power of deep concentration on your face (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, as a refuge out of the despair. Apart from that, it happens to everybody except for yogis who have made it their business to meditate. And even they find there are periods of blankness when nothing seems to be done or going on.

Sri Aurobindo: You must no forget Shakespeare’s saying that “All poetry is telling lies.” (laughter)

Disciple: Perhaps you had a dose of meditation last week which you are now assimilating; you are suffering from spiritual dyspepsia.

Disciple: But some people go into unconsciousness as soon as they begin meditation

as they begin meditation. For example R. and C. Even P. when he used to join became unconscious of the body.

Sri Aurobindo: Some yogis require a support to prevent their bodies from falling while they are in meditation. Those who practice Asanas can remain erect.

There are some who go to sleep standing like the horse. My grand-father, Raj Narayan Bose, was like that. One day we were walking together at night. Suddenly we missed him. When we came back we saw him sleeping standing.

Disciple: Sometimes meditation used to come to me spontaneously at my place and I used to get into a condition when I would be compelled to sit down to meditate.

Sri Aurobindo: It was probably the inner being insisting on it. It is always better to allow it to work.

Disciple: It used to happen even when I would be leaving for my work. For days I used to feel that my head was resting on the Mother’s feet. What is that?

Sri Aurobindo: The condition is “to want that and nothing else.” If you have that intense passion for union with the Divine then it can remain. It is too difficult, is it? So, it is better to allow the higher Power to work.

Disciple: We have been trying hard to make him remain here for three months but he is all the time thinking of his family

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, sometimes one feels the head opening or expanding. That is the sign of the mental being opening to the Power.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. One sees many things i.e. by the inner sight. These are symbols of life or energy. Sky is the symbol of the mind. Mountain is the symbol of the being with its different planes and parts with the Divine as the summit. Forests are symbols of the vital.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, as the mind expands so also the heart expands and also the vital. If one sees those things outside oneself then that has only symbolic significance but if one feels the widening or coming of Light in himself then that increases the opening and the receptivity of the being.

Sri Aurobindo: I mean by it a consciousness of which the Gita speaks as Param Bhavam, Purushottama, Parabrahman, Paramatman. That is to say, the origin and the support and cause of every thing. It is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, everywhere, You can’t define it. You limit it if you define it. It can be described as Sachchidananda. It is everything, it is everywhere, it is in everything. It is impersonal, “Neti, Neti;” it is also “Iti, Iti”. You can have the experience of Sachchidananda on any plane. These things cannot be known by the mind or by discussion. The “Golden lid has to be broken”.

Sri Aurobindo: First thing, you will become calm, quiet; secondly, there will be the feeling of strength, I mean the presence of a Force. Thirdly, the sense of the Infinite will be felt, you will feel yourself as the Infinite. Fourthly, something will be always there behind which will be able to govern the nature. Also the sense of Eternity and of yourself as Immortal. Even though the body dies you know you are immortal. Also there are many things more. For example, freedom from every thing even from the world. You realize the Transcendental and the Universal consciousness.

Realization of the fundamental being may be the beginning i.e. of the Essential being, Consciousness and Delight. Then, everything is divine, you are divine, you live in the divine: it is one of the most Anandamaya experiences. It is a concrete and real thing and not an idea. You cannot explain these things. You can’t explain even a stone in spite of your science. Everything is not material but mystical at bottom.

Disciple: Is it that this experience formulates itself differently in different Yogis to suit their personalities? or the difference is due to nature or personality itself?

Sri Aurobindo: There, personality is no longer separate. It is the One putting itself forward with a special quality, stress or that.

Sri Aurobindo: It is also true. It sometimes requires removing the veil and breaking the wall (in the heart).

Sometimes after this experience of opening it seems to close again. Most of the obstruction comes from the

vital. So, the being is prepared behind the veil and when everything is ready it is projected in the outer nature. But the demand of this Yoga is much more than in any other and so it takes a long time. All yoga requires patience above everything else.

Sri Aurobindo: According to some yogas you have no right to the result for twelve years. After twelve years you have to see if anything has happened or not.

Disciple: When the preparation is being done behind, can we say that some of the Sadhaks have achieved very great advance like the Vedic Rishis.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean? Their outer nature is not ready and so they can’t be said to have realized the Truth. Nature is full of difficulties and obstacles and so the Higher Power works behind. If it worked in the outer nature, it would meet too many obstacles.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not merely philosophy, but the fact is there corresponding to the philosophy. The Gita speaks of it as “Avibhaktam Vibhkteshu Vibhaktam iva cha Sthitam”, “Undivided in the midst of divided things, appearing as if divided.” This is not an illusion. I see a tree. The tree appears to me as separate from me. But it is the One, because one with Him. It is myself. It is something else than a tree. It is impossible to think of it as something else than the Brahman.

When I cast my eyes round the room everything,— objects and the persons —, appears the Brahman. I call you so and so but you are not that.

Ordinarily, one tags on everything to the “ego”. But in that higher state you understand the divine working

better than when you are a separate “ego”. It is when you can become “nobody” and have experience of the Divine that you can be free. That is Mukti. I realized the One, my self disappeared. It is difficult to think of my self as so and so, son of so and so. It is a relief and freedom to be “That” and to remain in “It”.

Sri Aurobindo: About Shankara’s Vedanta, the difficulty is that there are different explanations by various people. The world is an illusion — and the Illusion is indescribable. This is the common basis of all Shankara Adwaita — monism. According to him soul also is Maya — as it has no real existence. But I found that the experience behind this idea is quite different. I had that experience at Baroda, and if I had stopped there I would have been an orthodox {{0}}Vedantin.[[Shankar’s followers disagree. According to Sri Aurobindo, God is one and many at the same time — they may say, “a logical contradiction”. So is Maya — true and false at the same time. That also is a logical contradiction.]]

Silent atmosphere, M. meditating, P. sitting by his side. Sri Aurobindo cast a glance at M. After a few minutes P. tried to kill a mosquito with a clapping of hands. Sri Aurobindo looked at P. M. opened his eyes. P. felt much embarrassed.

Sri Aurobindo: My eldest brother was; from him I gathered that it was nothing. But Free Masons had something when it was started. Have you heard of Kaliostro? He was a mystic and a Free Mason with a great prophetic

power. He prophesied about the French Revolution, the raising of Bastille and guillotining of the King and Queen. He used to prophesy about race-horses. He got into trouble and was imprisoned and died in prison. He never charged any money from any one and yet he was affluent. It was said he knew alchemy and could make gold.

Sri Aurobindo: Have you heard about Nosterdamus? No? He was a Jew. At that time Jews had great knowledge. He wrote a book of prophecy in some obscure language and prophesied about the execution of Charles I, the end of the British Empire and the lasting of the Empire for about 330 years.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it was to be counted from the beginning of her colonies. That means from James I. In that case it should end now.

Disciple: From Chamberlain’s speech today it seems Britain is not obliged to side with France in case of war,— it looks like it.

Sri Aurobindo: The English always keep their policy open so that they may change and correct as they like or want.

At this time Mother came. We looked towards her and changed our position from near Sri Aurobindo’s head.

Disciple: We have decided to meditate when you come. (Mother made big eyes and we all laughed)

Sri Aurobindo: (addressing the Mother): I am giving him a few prophecies of Kaliostro and Nosterdamus whom he has never read, he says.

Sri Aurobindo: All preachers are illogical. Were you a fervent Buddhist? Is there much Buddhism in your parts?

Disciple: About one or two million people are Buddhists and there is nothing of Buddhism in what they follow.

Mother: In China and Japan also no Buddhism is left. Only ceremonies remain. In Ceylon they say there is still some authentic Buddhism.

Disciple: In Burma also the same is the case. There, people put on ochre clothes at day and throw them away at night. But the Burmese people show a great respect for their Bikshus.

Sri Aurobindo: Lele used to have the same idea. Once I met a Sanyasi with him. Lele asked me: “You don’t bow down to him?” I replied: “I don’t believe in the man”. Lele said: “But you must respect the yellow robe”. The Sanyasi was one of the three people whom Vivekananda drove out of his house and they became Avatars in one day (Laughter). Is he just the man to be so treated?

As Mother had fallen into meditation we all tried to

meditate with her. At about 7 P. M. she went for the group meditation and we rallied again round Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: (Addressing X) You seemed to have Ananda in your meditation. Your face is beaming with it.

Disciple: (shyly), I fell into deep sleep I think, but I had some visions also which seem to be quite distinctly outside.

Sri Aurobindo: Then why do you call it sleep? It may be the psychic being, or the inner being watching what is happening. Sometimes one goes into deeper state and remembers nothing in his outer consciousness, though many things may be going on within. What is called dreamless sleep is really a sleep in which dreams are passing on, only one does not know. Sometimes one discusses problems in such a condition, gets the ecstasy of union, etc. One may also go into other worlds with one part of this being and meet other forms etc. This is of course the first condition and a kind of a beginning of Samadhi. From what you describe it may be an inner being’s experience and not psychic. Even then, no doubt that your face is beaming with Ananda, seeing which I thought you went within.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes. Many people are said to have their problems solved in this way. I remember a peculiar experience of mine. As I was meditating I saw some writings crossing over my head, then a blank. Then again these writings with a gap in the middle which meant that things were going on though I was not conscious of it.

Sri Aurobindo: How? I saw you going in and powerfully wrestling your way towards the Brahman (laughter).

Disciple: Plenty of thoughts invaded me. I tried to reject them and make myself empty.

Disciple: NO, no, it is not, I could not go into nothingness. I did not feel the Presence; was it meditation, sir?

Sri Aurobindo: That is the beginning, the first condition, The mind must first be quiet for the other things to come down. But one must not dictate to meditation what it should be or not. One must accept whatever it brings.

Sri Aurobindo: (laughing) How do I know? You are to say that. I was only making comments on your statement.

Sri Aurobindo: You don’t expect me to know how many fish the fishermen have caught. How much they have made out of it? People from Bombay used to ask me if the price of cotton would go up, about race horses and about their lost children. What is the use of knowing all that? You know Ramakrishna’s story of the Sanyasi’s crossing the river. He said it was a Siddhi worth half an anna! Of course if necessary one can know these things, in a way, but I am not occupied with these sort of things. I have left it to the Mother. She hears what is being said at a

distance, meets Sadhaks in subtle planes, talks to them. She said exactly what was going to happen in the recent European trouble. We know what we have got to know for our work.

Disciple: What puzzles me is that you never told me when asked about the diagnosis of a patient.

Disciple: Oh, that is different. But you said you have no latent medico in you and hence you can’t say. I thought you could say by your intuition.

Sri Aurobindo: (addressing X) I was telling you we know what we have got to know. But it is not always good to know. For instance, if I know a thing is going to happen I am bound to it, and even if it is not what I wanted, I have to accept it, and this prevents my having a greater or another possibility. So I want to keep myself free and deal with various possibilities. Below the Supermind everything is a question of possibilities; so if I keep myself free, I can accept or reject as I like. Destiny is not a thing fixed. It is just a complex of forces which can be changed.

Disciple: Without knowledge of the thing how shall one work? After knowing what is to happen cannot one reject it?

Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge comes by intuition. One can reject but the result is not sure though failure may show the way for later success.

Disciple: You have said in an August conversation that you have conquered death by natural process but you have no control over accident.

Disciple: If I remember rightly, you wrote to me that diseases

can’t end your life but still you have no control over accidents.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh! Diseases usually run a long course so one has time to act on them, but if there is a disease suddenly of a severe nature that ends life immediately, then conquest is not possible. And about accidents the body has its own consciousness and is always alert. But if the mind is occupied with other things, then an accident can take one unawares. As regards violence e.g. of a riot, I would have to concentrate for four or five days to protect myself.

The hostile forces have tried many times to prevent the Darshan but I have succeeded in warding off all those attacks. This time I was more occupied with guarding the Mother and I forgot about myself. I did not think that they would attack me. That was my mistake. As regards the Ashram, I have been extremely successful but while I have tried to work in the world, results have been varied. In Spain I was splendidly successful. General Miaca was an admirable instrument to work on. Working of the Force depends on the instrument. Basque was an utter failure. Negus was a good instrument but people around him though good warriors were too ill organized and ill occupied. Egypt was not successful. Ireland and Turkey, a tremendous success. In Ireland I have done exactly what I wanted to do in Bengal. Turks are a silent race.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think much of either party. They are like six and half-a-dozen. Both too much materialistic. But if I had to choose; I would side with Japan. Japan at one time had an ideal. Their powers of self-sacrifice, patriotism, self-abnegation and silence are

remarkable. They would never lose temper in front of anybody. If his honour is injured he would stab, but he must not lose self-control. They can work so silently and secretly that no one knew anything before the Russo-Japan war broke out, how they had prepared themselves. All on a sudden they broke out into war. They are Kshatriyas and their aesthetic sense is of course well known.

But the European influence has spoiled all that. They are now very materialistic. Now how brutal they have become, which is thoroughly un-Japanese.

Look at the Japanese soldier slapping the European officers, though they deserve it. The Japanese commander challenging Chiang-Kai-Sheik to come out in the open field. The Japanese men attacking their political leaders — all this is unconceivable. This sort of swaggering is not at all Japanese. In old times, the Japanese, even while fighting, had perfect sympathy with those with whom they fought.

Disciple: But without brutalities (killing innocent inhabitants) it would be difficult to win the war.

Sri Aurobindo: God knows. They are such fine warriors and a patriotic and self-sacrificing nation that one would believe the contrary. But they are doing these things because of two reasons probably: 1. Financial shortage which is not very convincing because of their immense power of sacrifice. 2. Population of China.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a possibility but the Soviet’s internal condition is such that it can’t think of giving much help from out side.

Sri Aurobindo: Surely not, India is now going towards European Socialism which is dangerous for her; while we were trying to evolve true genius of the race along Indian lines and all working for independence.

Take the Bengal movement. The whole race was awakened within a short time. People who were such cowards and trembled before the sight of a revolver were in a short period so much changed that police officials used to say “Insolent Barisal”. It was the soul of the race that woke up throwing up very fine personalities. The leaders of the movement were either Yogis or disciples of Yogis e.g. Monoranjan Guha Thakurate disciple of B. Goswami.

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord. He was my fellow-worker. He also took part in secret society. Then Brahmo Bandhava Upadhayay etc. Ramkrishna and Vivekananda’s influence worked from behind. The movement with the secret society became so formidable that in any other country with a political past it would have led to something like the French Revolution. The sympathy of the whole race was on our side. Even shopkeepers were reading Yugantar. I will tell you an instance; while a young man was running away after killing a police officer in Shambazar, he forgot to throw away his revolver. It remained in his hand. One shop-keeper cried out: “Hide your revolver, hide your revolver.” Then you have heard of Jatin Mukerjee’s exploit.

Sri Aurobindo: A wonderful man. He was a man who would belong to the front rank of humanity. Such beauty and strength together I have not seen, and his stature was like that of a warrior.

Disciple: You told me Dr. R. uses mental intuition. So there may be various levels of intuition.

Sri Aurobindo: By mental intuition I mean the Intuition which comes from Above. Don’t get mixed in the mind. I don’t say that mental intuition is not correct but it is always limited because of the mixture. There is also the vital influence which very often becomes mixed up with one’s desires.

Disciple: But it won’t be possible to keep the silence until one has realized the spirit.

Dr. X took his leave and as Mother lapsed into meditation we all tried to do the same. Then after Mother had departed by 7 P.M., we rallied around Sri Aurobindo. He looked once or twice at M.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It was trying to cure your lumbago, perhaps, and the first sign was a little aggravation (we all laughed). You don’t believe in Kundalini?

Sri Aurobindo: But you were telling about your “ascent and descent” experience.

Disciple: Is that Kundalini? I did not know it (laughter). But Kundalini is not the line of our yoga and you have not mentioned about it any where.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Kundalini is, of course, the Tantrik idea: The Shakti lying coiled in Muladhara awakes, rises up and carries the consciousness upward opening all the chakras up to Brahmarandhra and then meets the Brahman, and then the descent begins. The Tantrik process is more technical.

It is curious to see the action of the Force in some cases. Some feel as if a drilling were being done in the brain. Some people can’t keep the Force in. They sway from side to side, make peculiar sounds. I remember one practicing Pranayama rigorously and making horrible sound. I did not hear of his getting any good results. Sometimes the Force raises up what lies below — in the lower nature — in order to be able to deal with it.

Disciple: It is surprising that Swami Nikhilananda should write about you. (There was an article in the Hindu by Swami Nikhilananda)

Sri Aurobindo: It is Nistha (Miss Wilson) who arranged for its publication through him, her friend, before she came here. (After some silence) It is peculiar how they give an American turn to everything [Ref. to the article]

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, because they are a new nation and have no past tradition to bind them. France and Czechoslovakia

also are open. Many are writing from there to do yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, for three or four years she has been in touch with us. She has very clear ideas about Yoga and is practicing it there.

At this point X. arrived and remarked that she must be very disappointed because there was no Darshan this time.

Then X. went on asking how is it that there are no Maharashtrian Sadhaks here in spite of Sri Aurobindo’s being in contact with Tilak and remaining a long time in Baroda.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; it is strange. They are more vital in their nature. The Bengali, Gujarati and Tamil people are more in numbers. It is now spreading in other parts C. P. Punjab, Behar.

Disciple: I hope we shall live to see the glorious day of the Supermind. When will it descend, Sir?

Sri Aurobindo: (remained silent to this question and said) How can it descend? The nearer it comes the greater becomes the resistance to it!

Sri Aurobindo: That theory does not apply to it for it has levitation tendency and if it comes down in spite of that it does so against tremendous resistance.

Sri Aurobindo: You know I was talking about the tail of the Supermind to Y. I know what it is, I had flashes and glimpses of it. I have been trying to Supramentalize the Overmind. Not that the Supermind is not acting. It is doing so through Overmind and Intuition and the intermediate powers have come down. Supermind is above the Overmind (He showed it by placing one palm above the other) so that one may mistake one for the other. I remember the day when people here claimed to have got it. I myself had made mistakes about it in the beginning, and I did not know about the many planes. It was Vivekananda who used to come to me in Alipore Jail and showed to me Intuitive plane and for about two to three weeks or so gave me training as regards Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see still higher planes. I am not satisfied with only a part, or a flash of Supermind but I want to bring down the whole mass of the Supermind pure, and that is an extremely difficult business.

Disciple: We hear that there will be a selected number of people who will first receive the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo: (made a peculiar expression with his eyes and asked) Selected by whom?

Sri Aurobindo (Laughingly): Oh, that is for the Supermind to decide. Whatever is the Truth will be done by it, for Supermind is Truth-Consciousness and things are established in the course by it so that your complaint about the disappearance of calm etc. will disappear, for they will be established by the Supermind.

Sri Aurobindo: It will do so to those who receive the Supermind, who are open to it; for example, if there

are thirty or forty people ready it could descend.

Disciple: You said that in 1934 Supermind was ready to descend but not a single Sadhak was found prepared. So it withdrew. But you told me once that the descent of Supermind does not depend on readiness of Sadhaks.

Sri Aurobindo: If none is ready to receive how will the Supermind manifest itself? But instead of thinking of Supermind one has first to open oneself to Intuition.

Then as Mother lapsed into meditation we all joined. Mother departed for meditation at about 7 P. M.

Sri Aurobindo: Does any one know about S.? I am curious to know how his blood came out drop by drop from the body. He seems to have Elizabethan turn of expression.

Then the topic turned to the question of fear of death with S. and N’s example. How they cover their body for fear of catching cold etc.

Sri Aurobindo told a story that at Cambridge they were discussing about physical development. Then one fellow in order to show his own courage began taking out his genji one after another and they found that there were about 10 or 12 on his body!!

Disciple: There are people who think that as soon as they have entered the Ashram they have become immortal! We must develop our consciousness in order to conquer death, is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: People think so, because for a long time no death took place in the Ashram. Those who died were either visitors or who had gone back from here. In the beginning people had strong faith but as the number increased, the faith began to diminish. But why one should fear death?

Besides fear has no place in yoga. The soul is immortal and the body passes. The soul goes from one life to another.

Sri Aurobindo: By mental strength, will and spiritual power. In my own case, whenever there was any fear I used to do the very things that I was afraid of even if it entailed a violent death. Barin also had much fear while he was in the terrorist activity. But he would compel himself to do those things. When death sentence was passed on him he took it very cheerfully. Henry IV, King of France, had a great physical fear but by his mental will he would compel himself to rush into the thick of the battle and was known as a great warrior. Napoleon and Caesar had no fear. Once when Caesar was fighting the forces of Pompeii in Albania, Caesar’s army was faring badly. Caesar was at that time in Italy. He jumped into the sea, took a fisherman’s boat and asked him to carry him there. On the way a storm rose and the fisherman was mortally afraid. The Caesar said “Why do you fear? You are carrying the fortunes of Caesar.”

I remember one Sadhaka under an attack of hiccup saying “If it goes on I will die.” I told him “What does it matter if you die?” and the hiccup stopped! Very often, these fears and suggestions bring in the adverse forces which then catch hold of the subject. By my blunt statement the Sadhaka realized his folly and did not, perhaps, allow any more suggestions.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know, he used to do some sort of yoga even before I began. My yoga he took up only after coming to Pondicherry. In the Andamans also he

was practicing it. You know he was Lele’s disciple. Once he took Lele to Calcutta among the young people of the secret society. Lele did not know that they were revolutionaries. One day Barin took him into a garden where they were practicing shooting. As soon as Lele saw it he understood the nature of the movement and asked Barin to give it up. If Barin did not listen to him, Lele said, he would fall into a ditch and he did fall.

Sri Aurobindo: They were mere mental and he gathered some knowledge, much information or understanding out of them. I heard that when he had begun yoga he had an experience of Kamananda. Lele was surprised to hear about it. For he said that experience comes usually at the end. It is a descent like any other experience but unless one’s sex centre is sufficiently controlled it may produce bad results etc. emission and other disturbances.

Sri Aurobindo: But he was always narrow and limited. He would not widen himself, (Sri Aurobindo showed it by the movement of hands above the head) that is why his things won’t last. e.g. he was brilliant writer and he also wrote devotional poetry. But nothing that will last because of this limitation. He was an amazing amateur in many things e.g. music, revolutionary activity. He was also a painter, though it did not come to much in spite of his exhibitions. He did well in all these but nothing more.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know that. Did he publish a paper?

I would have been interested to see what he writes about me.

Disciple: You wrote back exclaiming great surprise that what everyone knows I do not know.

Sri Aurobindo: In fact it is not true. That is, what it is. Barin does not give the true state of things. I was neither the founder nor the leader. It was P. Mittra and Miss Ghosal that started it at the inspiration of Baron Okakura. They had already started and when I visited Bengal I cam to know about it. I simply kept myself informed of their work. My idea was an open armed revolution in the whole of India. What they did at that time was very childish. e.g. beating magistrates and so on. Later it turned into terrorism and dacoities etc. which were not at all my idea or intention. Bengal is too emotional, wants quick results, can’t prepare through a long course of years. We wanted to give battle through creating a spirit in the race through guerrilla warfare. But at the present stage of warfare such things are impossible and bound to fail.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not good to check such things that press for strong expression, when they have taken a strong step, for, something good may come out of it.

Sri Aurobindo: No, they gave me another chance. But again I did not appear and finally they rejected me.

Disciple: But why then did you appear in the I.C.S.? Was it by some intuition that you did not come for the riding test?

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. I knew nothing of yoga at that time. I appeared for I.C.S. because my father wanted it and I was too young to understand. Later I found out what sort of work it is and I had disgust for administrative life and I had no interest in administrative work. My interest was in poetry and literature and study of languages and patriotic action.

Disciple: We heard that you and C.R. Das used to make plans of revolution in India while in England.

Disciple: You used to write very strong memoranda for the Gaikewad; you once asked him to go and give it to the Resident personally.

Sri Aurobindo: That is legend. I could not have said so. Of course, I wrote many memoranda for the Maharajah. Generally he used to indicate the lines and I used to follow them. But I myself was not much interested in administration. My interest lay outside in Sanskrit, literature, in the national movement. When I came to Baroda from England I found out what the Congress was at that time and formed a contempt for it. Then I came in touch with Deshpande, Tilak, Madhav Rao etc. There I strongly criticized the Congress for its moderate policy. The articles were so furious that M.G. Ranade, the great Maharashtra leader, asked the proprietor of the paper (through Deshpande) not to allow such seditious things to appear in the paper, otherwise he might be arrested and imprisoned. Deshpande approached me with

the news and requested me to write something less violent. I then began to write about philosophy of politics, leaving aside the practical part of politics. But I soon got disgusted with it.

Along with Tilak, Madhav Rao, Deshmukh and Joshi who became a moderate later, we were planning to work on more extreme lines than the Congress. We brought Jatin Banerji from Bengal and put him in the Baroda army. Our idea was to drive moderates from the Congress and capture it.

As soon as I heard that National College had been started in Bengal, I found my opportunity, threw off the Baroda job and went to Calcutta as the Principal. There I came in contact with B. Pal who was editing the “Bande mataram.” But its financial condition was precarious and when B. Pal was going on a tour he asked me to take up the paper. I asked Subodh Mullick and others to finance the paper and went on editing it.

Then some people wanted to oust Bipin Chandra Pal from the Bande Matram and they connected my name also with it. I called the sub-editor and gave him a severe thrashing, of course metaphorically. But the mischief was done. Bipin Pal was a great orator, and at that time his speeches were highly inspired, a sort of a descent. Later on his power of oration also got diminished. I remember he never used the word independence but always said “Autonomy without British control.” Later on when after Barisal Conference we brought in the peasants in the movement, forty to fifty thousand of them used to gather to hear Pal; Suren Banerjee can not stand comparison with Pal. He has never done anything like it. But he also lost his power later on. He was more an orator. He had not the qualities of a leader. Then Shyamsundar and some other people

came in. It soon drew the attention of large number of people and became an All-India paper. One day I called the Bengal leaders and said, “It is no use simply going on like this. We must capture the Congress and throw out these moderate leaders from it.” Then we decided to follow Tilak as the All-India leader.

They at once jumped at the idea. Tilak who was not well known in the Northern parts was chosen for leadership. He was a real great man who was disinterested and a rare great man.

Sri Aurobindo: Then I have reviewed it without having read it (loud laughter). Of course I might have glanced through it and I don’t think it is inspired. It is more a mental interpretation and he had a brilliant mind.

Disciple: When some one asked Tilak what he would do when India got Swaraj, he said he would again become a professor of Mathematics.

Sri Aurobindo: Never, it was impossible for A. B. Patrika to write openly like the “Bande Mataram” and Jugantar about independence, guerrilla warfare, day after day in a paper. It wanted safety first. At that time three papers were running in Bengal 1. “Jugantar” 2. Bande Mataram 3. And Sandhya. Brahma Bandhava. Upadhyaya editor of Sandhya was another great man. He used to write so cleverly the Government could not charge him; and our financial condition was so bad and yet we carried on for five to six years.

Sri Aurobindo: It could not. There was no such law and the press had more liberty. Besides there was nothing in the papers that could be directly charged against — so cleverly were they written. “Statesman” used to complain that the paper Bande Mataram was full of seditious matter from end to end. But yet so cleverly was it written that one could not arrest the editor. Moreover the name of editor was never published. So they could arrest only the printer. But when one was arrested another came to take his place. Later on Upen Banerjee, Sub-editor, published some correspondence for which I was arrested on sedition charge, but as nothing could be proved I was acquitted. But in my absence as they were disastrously up against finance they wrote something very strong and the paper was suppressed. After another arrest I published the “Karmayogin”. There I wrote an article “Open letter to my countrymen.” for which the Government wanted to prosecute me. While the prosecution was pending I went secretly to Chandranagore and there some friends were thinking of sending me to France. I was thinking what to do next. There I heard the Adesh to go to Pondicherry.

Sri Aurobindo: I could not question. It was Sri Krishna’s Adesh. I had to obey. Later on I found it was for the Ashram and for the Work.

I had to apply for a passport under a false name. The Ship Company required Medical Certificate by an English Doctor. After a great deal of trouble I found out one and went to his house. He told me that I could speak English remarkably well. I replied that I had been to England.

Disciple: You took the certificate under a false name. (I was a little surprised to hear he had disguised under a false name, so the question.)

Sri Aurobindo: Of course. If I had given my name, I would have been at once arrested. With due respect to Gandhi’s truth I could not be exactly precise about my name, otherwise you can’t be a revolutionary.

Accompanied by Bijoy and preceded by Moni and followed by my brother-in-law I arrived in Pondicherry but had to assume false names for some time.

All of us assembled in the hope of hearing something from Sri Aurobindo. I was actually praying for it. But he did not seem to be in a talking mood. So we were forced to keep quiet at the same time thinking how to draw him into conversation and by what question. Suddenly we find X. beaming with a smile and looking at Sri Aurobindo. Then he takes a few more moves nearer to Sri Aurobindo and we automatically follow him, he still nears and then he bursts out with a question:

Disciple: To attain right attitude what principles should we follow in our dealing and behaviour with others?

Sri Aurobindo: It seems to me the other way about. If we have the right attitude other things come by themselves. Right attitude is necessary; what is important is the inner attitude. Spiritual and ethical principles are quite different, for every thing depends on whether it is done for the sake of the Spirit or ethical reasons.

One may observe mental control in dealings etc. but the inner state may be quite different e.g. he may not show anger, may be humble externally, but internally he may be proud and full of anger, for example A.

When he came here he was full of humility outside. It is the psychic control that is required and when that is there right attitude follows in one’s external behaviour. Conduct must flow from within outwards and the more one opens to the psychic influence the more it gains over the outer nature. Mental control may or may not lead to the spiritual. In people of a certain type it may be the first step towards psychic control.

Sri Aurobindo: By constant remembrance, consecration of ourselves to the Divine, rejection of all that stands in the way of the psychic influence. Generally, it is the vital that stands in the way with its desires and demands. And once the psychic opens it shows at every step what is to be done.

At the later stage of the conversation Mother came and soon after, we all lapsed into meditation with the Mother. After her departure at about 7 P.M. Sri Aurobindo asked X.

Sri Aurobindo: What is the idea behind your question, something personal or a general question?

Disciple: I meant, for instance, how to see good in every body, how to love all and have good-will for all.

Sri Aurobindo: One has to start with the idea of good-will for all; to consecrate oneself to the Divine, try to see God in others, have a psychic good-will and in oneself reject all vital and mental impulses, and on that basis proceed towards the realization. The idea must pass into experience. Even then, it is easy in the static aspect, but when it comes to the dynamic experience it becomes difficult. For example, when one finds a man behaving like a brute it is very difficult to see God in him unless one separates him from outer nature and sees the Divine behind.

One can repeat the name of the Divine and come to divine consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: Name has a power like Mantra. Everything in the world is power. There are others who do Pranayama along with the name. After a time the repetition behind the Pranayama becomes automatic and one feels Divine presence etc. Here people once began to feel tremendous force in their work. They would work without fatigue for hours and hours, but they began to overdo it. One has to be reasonable even in spirituality. That was when the Sadhana was in the vital. But when it began in the physical then things were different. Physical is like a stone, full of inertia and resistance.

Disciple: Sometimes one feels a sort of love for everybody, though the feeling lasts for a second it gives a great joy.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the wave from the psychic. But what is your attitude towards it? Do you take it as a passing mood or does it stimulate you to further experience of that sort?

Disciple: It stimulates but sometimes vital mixture tries to come in. Fortunately I could drive it out.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the risk. The fact that mixture tried to come in means that the wave came through the inner vital and thus took something from the vital. One has to be very careful in order to avoid these sex impurities. In spite of his occasional outburst of violence X was a very nice and affectionate man; but he used to get these things mixed up with sex-impulse and the experience was spoiled. This happens because sometimes one gives a semi-justification to sex-impulse. But sex is absolutely out of place in Yoga. In ordinary life it has a certain place for a certain purpose. Of course, if you

adopt the Sahaja Marga, it is different.

While in jail I knew of a man who had a power of concentration trying to make everyone love him and he succeeded. The warder and all the people around him were drawn towards him.

Sri Aurobindo: The mind must be made quiet and the consciousness turned — not mentally — towards the aim. It no doubt takes time but that is the way. There are no devices for these things.

Disciple: What difference is there between modification of nature and its transformation?

Sri Aurobindo: Transformation is the casting of the whole nature in the mould of realization. What you realize you project out in your nature. Christian Saints speak of the presence in the heart. That presence can change the nature.

I speak of three transformations: 1) Psychic, 2) Spiritual and 3) Supramental. Psychic transformation many had; spiritual is the realization of the Self, the Infinite above, with its dynamic side of peace, knowledge, ananda etc. That transformation is spiritual transformation and above that is the Supramental transformation. It is Truth-consciousness working for a Divine aim or purpose.

Disciple: If one has inner realization does transformation follow in the light of the realization?

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. There may be some modification in the nature-part but the transformation is not automatic. It is not so easy as all that. My experience of peace and calm in the first contact with Lele has never left me, but in my outer nature there were many agitations and every time I had to make an effort to establish peace. From that time onwards the

whole object of my yoga was to change nature into the mould of the inner realization. I had to try to change or transform these by the influence of my realization.

Disciple: Even then a man with inner realization, — I don’t mean experience — won’t have grave difficulties such as sex in his nature.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? There can be anger, like Durvasa’s or sex. You have not heard of the fall of Rishis through anger or through sex? The Yogis pass beyond the stage of good and evil. Ordinary questions of morality don’t arise in them. They look upon outer nature as a child behaving according to its wants. I think X’s fall came in that way. He had gone into the higher mind, I do not know, if not even to the overmind state; he used to be guided by an inner voice which he accepted as the voice of the Divine and did everything in the light of that voice. When people were asking him about his conduct I am told he replied that it was by the voice of God and that every Siddha had done that. You have heard of Agymananda Swami who went to London? He was arrested in England for making love to girls.

Disciple: Would not the inner realization stop because of these outer indulgences.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on how far one has gone in the path in spiritual realization. There are any number of passages, crossways and paths; one may be at liberty to whatever yoga one likes. But in our yoga we insist on the transformation of outer nature as well. And when I say something is necessary in yoga, it means in “our yoga”; it does not apply to yoga with other aims.

Disciple: My impression was not favourable. I was not personally attracted by him.

Sri Aurobindo: When I saw his photo I had an impression that he is a man with strong vital power. When I saw that he was advertising about himself as Messiah I began to doubt his genuineness. His sadhana seems to be in the vital and it is in these cases that the power descends and unfortunately people are attracted by these powers. In the spiritual and the psychics even in mental sadhana, power can come, but it comes automatically without one asking for it.

Y. was another M. with a powerful vital being. At one time I had strong hopes about him. But people whose sadhana is on a vital basis pass into what I have called the Intermediate Zone and hardly go beyond the vital. It is like a jungle and it is comparatively much easy with those people who are weak and have no such power. He used to think that he had put himself in the Divine’s hand and the Divine is in him. We had to be severe with him to disillusion him of his idea. That is why he could not remain here. He went back and became a guru with about thirty or forty disciples around him. Gurugiri (Master-ship) comes very often to these people. He did all that in my name which I heartily disliked. Unfortunately his mind was not equally powerfully developed as his vital. He had the fighter’s mind not the thinker’s. We often put a strong force on him and as a result he used to become very lucid for a time and he could see his wrongs. But immediately his vital rushed back and took control of his mind, it all used to be wiped out. If his mind had been as developed perhaps he would have been able to retain the clarity. The intellect helps one to

separate oneself from the vital and look at it dispassionately. The mind also can deceive but not so much. M. is another of this type.

Sri Aurobindo: Because he wanted to be an Avatar and because he could not get rid of the attachment to his work. He is very unscrupulous.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But not occult powers like the others. Before that he was quite an ordinary man with some possibilities. When I came out of the jail, you know, I was staying in his house and I was full of a certain force. He got a share of it.

Sri Aurobindo: He was doing some kind of yoga. I gave him some instructions. From them he got his power.

Sri Aurobindo: When I was leaving Bengal I thought it might be possible to work through him on condition that he remained faithful to me. That he could never be. His own self came to the front though the original push was from me, now it is not my force that is working there. These things become easily unspiritualised.

Sri Aurobindo: She struck me as a common-place woman though a good woman. She was a better woman than he as a man. I saw her only once by chance as she was not used to come out before people.

We have assembled as usual, and are eager to resume the talk. But nobody could begin without some hint or gesture from Sri Aurobindo. He was lying calmly in his bed.

A disciple made an approach to Sri Aurobindo half-hesitatingly. This made another disciple roar with laughter. (Sri Aurobindo heard the laughter)

This primary breaking of the ice made the atmosphere a little encouraging So, X catching the chance shot the following question with a beaming face:

Disciple: Because the hostile forces offer resistance to the Divine manifestation in the world and some of them become sometimes victorious (at least for the time being) can one logically say that the Divine lacks Omnipotence? It is not my question but somebody else’s.

Sri Aurobindo: (Turning his head to him.) It depends on what you mean by Omnipotence. If the idea is that God must always succeed then we must conclude that he is not Omnipotent. Do you mean to say that he must always succeed against the resistance and then only he may be called Omnipotent? People have very queer ideas of Omnipotence. Resistance is the law of evolution. Resistance comes from ignorance and ignorance is a part of inconscience: the whole thing starts from

ignorance that is inconscience. At the very beginning when the opposition between ignorance and knowledge was created, there was the very denial of the Divine. It is his Lila that the manifestation shall proceed through resistance and struggle: what kind of Lila, or play, it is in which side goes on winning? Divine Omnipotence generally works through the universal law. There are forces of Light and forces of Darkness. To say that the forces of Light shall always succeed is the same as saying that truth and good shall always succeed, though there is no such thing as unmixed truth and unmixed good. Divine Omnipotence intervenes only at critical or decisive moments.

Every time the Light has tried to descend it has met with resistance and opposition. Christ was crucified. You may say, “Why should it be like that when he was innocent?” and yet that was the Divine dispensation. Buddha was denied; sons of Light come, the earth denies them, rejects them in substance. Only a small minority grows towards a spiritual birth. It is through them the Divine manifestation takes place. What remains of Buddhism today except a few decrees of Asoka and a few hundred thousand Buddhists?

Sri Aurobindo: If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual it would have been much better for real Buddhism. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline. The king of Norway, on whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all people who were not Christians

and thus succeeded in establishing Christianity! The same happened to Mohammedanism. When it succeeded, the followers of the Prophet became Khalifas, then the religion declined. It is not kings and emperors that keep alive spirituality but people who are really spiritual that do so.

Sri Aurobindo: But he remained emperor till the end. When kings and emperors try to spread religion they become like Asoka i.e. make the whole thing mechanical and the inner truth is lost.

Disciple: Raman Maharshi was known to no one. It was Brunton who made him widely known.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a strange measure of success, people adopt in judging people by the number of disciples. Who was great — Raman Maharshi who did his Sadhana in seclusion for years or Raman Maharshi surrounded by all sorts of disciples? Success to be real must be spiritual. At times, when some spiritual movement begins to succeed then the real thing begins to be lost.

Sri Aurobindo: (related a story here) Mrs. K. went to see Maharshi and was seen driving mosquitoes at the time of meditation. She complained to him about mosquito bites. The Maharshi told her that if she couldn’t bear mosquito bites she couldn’t do yoga. Mrs. K. could not understand the significance of the statement. She wanted spirituality without mosquitoes!

There are reports that those who stay there permanently are not all in agreement with each other.

Do you know that famous story about Maharshi “when being disgusted with the Ashram and the disciples,” he was going away into the mountain. He was passing through a narrow path flanked by the hills. He came upon an old woman sitting with her legs across the path. Maharshi begged her to draw her legs but she would not. Then Maharshi in anger passed across her. She then became very angry and said “Why are you so restless? Why can’t you sit in one place at Arunachala instead of moving about, go back to your place and worship Shiva there?” Her remarks struck him and he retraced his steps. After going some distance he looked back and found that there was nobody. Suddenly it struck him that it was the Divine Mother herself who wanted him to remain at Arunachala.

Of course it was the Divine Mother who asked him to go back. Maharshi was intended to lead this sort of life. He has nothing to do with what happens around him. He remains calm and detached. The man is what he was. By the way, I am glad to hear Maharshi shouting with the Indian Christian (we all laughed with him); it means he also can become dynamic. The only Ashram in which there was great unity, I heard, was Thakur Dayanand’s. There was a strong sense of unity among them. I wrote an article on the “Avatar” in Karmayogin. Mahendra Dey, Dayanand’s disciple, seeing the article wrote to me “he is the Avatar”. He was very enthusiastic about it. And when there was police firing and arrests, Mahendra Dey after his imprisonment became changed and said that he was hypnotized by Dayananda.

Disciple: Why are the Gurus obliged to work with imperfect and defective people like us? Here the difficulty seems to be more keen.

Sri Aurobindo: That has been a puzzle to me also. But it is so. Our case is a little different. Our aim is to change the world, not universally, of course. Hence every one here represents human nature with all its difficulties and capacities. That’s how your difficulties are explained, (He said looking at X).

Four disciples were seated on the carpet talking in low whispers at about 5. 30 P. M. One of the group broke into suppressed laughter in the course of the talk. At 6. 30 P. M. we all assembled by the side of Sri Aurobindo. He looked round and referring to the laughter asked:

Disciple: It is very peculiar how I break out into uncontrolled laughter so easily. Formerly, I used to weep at the slightest provocation. I think because I live in the external consciousness only I laugh so easily. Is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the reaction of the superficial vital which is touched easily by simple, outward things; there is a child in nature that bursts out like that. It is the same as the Balabhava — the child — like nature. The deeper vital being does not get so easily touched.

Sri Aurobindo: How to do it! One offers one’s vital, mind and heart, attachment, passions, and grows into the Divine consciousness.

Disciple: What time is more propitious for meditation, day-time or night-time? I get more concentrated at night.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be due to the calm and quiet atmosphere and also because you are accustomed to it. Nights and early mornings are supposed to be the best for meditation. We ask people to have a fixed time for meditation, for, if they are habituated to it then the response comes at that time due to Abhyas. Lele asked me to meditate twice but when he came to Calcutta he heard that I did not do it. He did not give me time to explain that my meditation was going on all the time. He simply said: “the devil has caught you.”

Disciple: The other day I was having peace, and ananda, and I saw many visions. But I had to go to sleep, for I thought, if I kept up at night I might fall ill. I saw the flower signifying sincerity in my vision.

Sri Aurobindo: The thing is, the physical being has got a limit. The vital being can feel the energy, peace, etc. but

the physical cannot be taxed beyond its capacity. That is what happened to many Sadhaks here. They overworked till a reaction took place. The force comes for your particular work, not to increase the work and keep it for the other purposes. If you go on overdoing it then the natural reaction will come. There is a certain amount of reasonableness even in spirituality.

Disciple: At one time I also used to feel a lot of energy while I was working with the Mother and I was never fatigued even working day and night, only one or two hours sleep was sufficient and I would feel as fresh as ever.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. That is because you opened to the Energy. About sleep, even ten minutes of sleep may be enough, but of course, it is not ordinary sleep but going within. If you can draw the Force with equanimity and conserve it, these things can be done. As I said many Sadhaks felt that sort of thing when we were dealing with the vital. But when the Sadhana came into the physical there was not that push any more and people began to feel easily fatigued, lazy, and unwilling to work. They began to complain about ill-health due to overwork and were helped by the doctor. Do you know the idea of “H?” He says people have come here not for work but for meditation.

I dare say if we had not come down into the physical and remained in the vital and mental like other Yogis without trying to transform them then things would have been different.

At this hour Mother came in and we meditated for sometime. After she went away, our talk was resumed. Someone remarked N. had a good meditation. He did not know that Mother has gone.

Disciple: I can’t say; I was having many incoherent dreams and visions — that is all I can say, perhaps it was in the surface consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: Surface consciousness of the inner vital being. Such things are very common; of course, when one goes still deeper one does not see them. There is a point between the surface consciousness and the deeper vital which is full of these fantasies and dreams. They are apparently incoherent. In the physical a mouse turning into an elephant may have no meaning but it is not so in the vital. They have no coherence of the physical plane but they have their own coherence of the vital plane. But when one gets the clue one finds that everything is a linked whole. That I have seen many times in my own case. It is this world from which Tagore’s painting came,— what Europeans call the Goblin world.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not think so. Some see them but do not draw them. But they come to him. Anybody who has the least experience of these planes can at once say from where they come.

Disciple: But how is it that people think and he himself calls it great paintings?

Sri Aurobindo: Everybody calls it “great and wonderful”, so he himself comes to think it so.

Then we began to talk about headache either due to physical cause or resistance.

Disciple: I have seen many times my headache start after Mother’s touch at Pranam.

Sri Aurobindo: That may be because you passed from one state of consciousness to another.

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? When from a state of concentration you mix yourself just after the Pranam you can easily pass to another state. That is why Mother advises people to remain calm and quiet for some time after Pranam or meditation.

Disciple: I felt once as if the head were suspended in the air and that parts of body did not resist.

Disciple: Are you able to know what experiences Sadhaks are having, especially if they are some decisive ones?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t. But Mother knows. Whenever it is a question of consciousness she can see in the Sadhak whatever changes are taking place. When she meditates (with the Sadhak) she can know what line he is following, the line she indicates or the Sadhak’s own and afterwards what changes have been brought about in the consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: What is the use of giving our own things to them? Let them have their own growth. I may put in a Force for people who are in habitual bad condition, people who are always going in the wrong and try to work it out so that the condition might improve. If the

Sadhak co-operates then it is comparatively easy. Otherwise, if the Sadhak is passive then the result takes a long time, it comes, goes again, returns like that and ultimately the Force prevails. In case of people like “X.” we used to put in a strong Force then he became lucid and then the whole vital used to rush up and catch hold of him. Whereas if the Sadhak actively participates then it takes only one-tenth of the time.

Sri Aurobindo himself opened the talk today by addressing X and said “I hear D. going about in his car with a guard by his side, two cyclist policemen in front and back.” Then the talk continued regarding Pondicherry politics, most of the talk being by us. Then Sri Aurobindo remarked.

Sri Aurobindo: When I see Pondicherry and Calcutta Corporation I begin to wonder why I was so eager for democracy. Pondicherry and Calcutta Corporation are the two object lessons which can take away all enthusiasm for self-government.

Sri Aurobindo: No. There was not so much scope for it,— at least we did not know of such scandals. It is the same thing with other municipal Governments. In New York and Chicago the whole machinery is corrupt. Sometimes the head of the institution is like that. Sometimes a Mayor comes up with the intention of cleaning out the whole, but one does not know after cleaning which one was better. The Mayor of Chicago was a great criminal but all judges and police-officers were under his pay. In France also it is about the same thing.

It is not surprising that people got disgusted with Democracy

England is comparatively less corrupt. The English are the only people who know how to work the Parliamentary system. Parliamentary Government is in their blood.

Disciple: It seems that our old Indian system was the best for us. How could it succeed so well?

Sri Aurobindo: The old Indian system grew out of life, it had room for everything and every interest. There were monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. Every interest was represented in the Government. While in Europe the Western System grew out of the mind. They are led by reason and want to make everything cut and dried without any chance of freedom or variation. If it is democracy, then democracy only. No room for anything else. They cannot be plastic.

India is now trying to imitate the West. Parliamentary Government is not suited to India. But we always take up what the west has thrown off. Sir Akabar wanted to try a new sort of Government with an impartial authority at the head. There, in Hyderabad, the Hindu majority complains that though Mohammedens are in minority they occupy most of the offices in the state. By Sir Akabar’s method almost every interest would have been represented in the Government and automatically the Hindus would have come in, but because of their cry of responsible Government the scheme failed. They have a fixed idea in the mind and want to fit everything to it. They can’t think for themselves and so take up what the others are throwing off.

Disciple: What is your idea of an ideal Government for India? It is possible in Hyderabad which has a Nizam.

But how to do the same in an Indian Constitution?

Sri Aurobindo: Sir Akabar’s is as good as any. My idea is like what Tagore once wrote. There may be one Rashtrapati at the top with considerable powers so as to secure a continuity of policy and an Assembly representative of the nation. The provinces will contribute to a Federation, united at the top, leaving ample scope to local bodies to make laws according to their local problems. Mussolini started with a fundamental of the Indian System but afterwards began bullying and bluffing other nations for the sake of imperialism. If he had persisted in his original idea, he would have been a great creator.

Disciple: Dr. Bhagwandas suggested that there should be legislators above the age of 40, completely disinterested like the Rishis.

Sri Aurobindo: A chamber of Rishis! That would not be very promising. They will at once begin to quarrel. As they say; Rishis in ancient times could guide kings because they were distributed over various places.

Sri Aurobindo: And let them quarrel like Kilkeni cats. I suppose. (Said laughing.)

The Congress at the present stage — what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I won’t say like Hitler. What Gandhi says they accept and even Working Committee follows him. Then it goes to A. I. C. C. which adopts it and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion except for Socialists who are allowed to differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the provinces

whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Every thing is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it like Stalin’s Parliament. When we started the movement we began with the idea of throwing out the Congress oligarchy and open the whole organization to the general mass.

Disciple: Srinivas Ayyanger retired from Congress because of his difference with Gandhi. He objected to Gandhi’s giving the movement a religious turn and bringing in religion in Politics.

Sri Aurobindo: He made Charka a religious article of faith and excluded all people from Congress Membership who could not spin. How many believe in his gospel of Charka? Such a tremendous waste of energy, just for the sake of a few annas is most unreasonable.

Sri Aurobindo: Discipline is all right but once you centralize you go on centralizing.

Disciple: It failed in agricultural provinces and seems to have succeeded in other places especially where people had no occupation.

Sri Aurobindo: In Bengal it did not. It may be all right as a famine-relief measure. But when it takes the form of an All-India programme it looks absurd. If you form a programme that is suited to the condition of the agricultural people it sounds something reasonable. Give them education, technical training and give them (Fundamentals or Principles of) organization not on political but on business lines. But Gandhi does not want any

such industrial organization and so comes in with his magical formula “spin, spin, spin.” C. R. Das and others could act as a balance against him. It is all a fetish.

Denmark and Ireland organized in the same way. Only now they are going to suffer because other nations are trying to be self-sufficient. I don’t believe in that sort of self-sufficiency. For that is against the principles of life. It is not possible for nations to be self-sufficient like that.

Disciple: What do you think of Hindi being the common language? It seems to me English has occupied so much place that it will be unwise and difficult to replace it.

Sri Aurobindo: English will be all right and even necessary if India is to be on an international state. In that case English has to be the medium of expression, especially as English is now replacing French as a world-language. But the national spirit won’t allow it and also it s a foreign language. At the same time Hindi can’t replace English in the universities nor the provincial languages. The national spirit grows it is difficult to say what will happen. In Ireland before the revolution they wanted to abolish English and adopt Gaelic but as time went on and things settled themselves their enthusiasm waned and English came back.

Disciple: I do not understand why the Jews are being so much persecuted by Hitler.

Sri Aurobindo: Nonsense, on the other hand they helped Germany a great deal. It is because they are a clever

race that others are jealous of them, for anything that is wrong you point to the Jews! It is so much more easy than finding the real cause, or because people want something to strike and so the popular cry, “The Jews the Jews”. You remember I told you about the prophecy regarding the Jews that when they will be persecuted and driven to Jerusalem that the Golden age shall come?

It is the Jews that have built Germany’s Commercial fleet and her navy. The contribution of Jews towards the world’s progress in every branch is remarkable.

But this sort of dislike exists among other nations also e.g. the English do not like the Scots, because the Scottish have beaten the English in commercial affairs. There was a famous story in the Punch: two people asking themselves. “Bill, who is that man?”, and Bill answered, “Let us strike at him, he is a stranger.”

And then in Bengal the West Bengal people used to call East Bengal people “Bangale” and composed a satire “Bangale Manush nohe oe ekta jantu” At one time I used to wear socks at all times of the year. West Bengalis used to sneer at that saying, “I am a Bangale”; they thought that they were the most civilized people on earth. It is a legacy from the animal world. Just as dogs of one street do not like dogs of another.

Sri Aurobindo: If this goes, you may be sure that the Golden Age is coming! All my opinions are of course on the basis of the present conditions. But the things would be quite different if the Supermind came down.

Disciple: You are tempting us too much with your Supermind. But will it really benefit the whole of mankind?

Sri Aurobindo: It will exert a certain upward pull but in order that it may bring about a considerable change, that it may be efficient, hundred Sadhaks of the Ashram can’t be enough. It must be thousands whose influence can spread all over the world, who by actual test can prove that it is something superior to the means hitherto employed.

Disciple: Will it have a power (corresponding to the Universal Consciousness) over humanity?

Sri Aurobindo: We shall leave it to the Supermind to answer that question when it comes.

Disciple: The materialist and scientist say that Yogis have done nothing for human happiness. Buddhas and Avatars have come and gone but the sufferings of humanity are just the same.

Sri Aurobindo: Did Avatar come to relieve the sufferings of humanity? It was only Buddha who showed the way of release from suffering. But his path was to get away from the world and enter into Nirvana. Does mankind follow him? And if they do not and cannot get rid of their suffering, it is not Buddha’s fault!!

Disciple: They say that by scientific inventions and medical discoveries they have been able to improve the condition of the world. e.g. by cholera injections, smallpox vaccinations the death rate is reduced

Sri Aurobindo: And are they happy? Vaccination! Intellectual people say that vaccinations have done more harm than good.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? The intellectuals have studied the subject before they gave their opinion. They may have reduced Cholera etc., what about other things that they have brought in? About suffering! Suffering cannot go as long as ignorance remains. Even after the Supermind descends the suffering will remain. If you choose to remain in suffering how can it go?

Disciple: They say that they can compel people to take injections even against their will, can spiritual force do that? The Yogis have been busy with their own salvation while the world has remained just the same.

Sri Aurobindo: Evolution has proceeded from matter through animal to physical man, vital man, mental man and spiritual man. When mental man or spiritual man appears the others do not disappear. So, the tiger and serpent do not become man. In this upward growth of the human consciousness you cannot say that Buddha, Christ etc. have played no part.

I consider the Supramental the culmination of the Spiritual man. When the Supramental becomes established I expect that one will not be required to flee from life. It is something dynamic that changes life and nature. It will open the vital, mental even the physical to the intuitive and overmental planes.

You want comfort and happiness; in that case, Truth and Knowledge are of no value.

The discoveries of modern science have outrun their own usefulness, the human capacity to use them. And the scientists don’t know what to do with these discoveries. They have been used for the purposes of destruction. Now they are trying to kill men by throwing germs of small-pox from aeroplanes; they at least end the suffering by death but by bombing you mutilate for

life. Politics, science, even socialism have not succeeded in finding a way out of suffering. They have killed people; they kill each other and involve the state into a peril unless you say that murders and massacres are necessary. From this state of chaos and suffering there have been ways of escape and people have been shown the way out. You say they are not useful.

No, no, all that is a superficial view of things. One has to consider the whole civilization before one can pass opinion.

It is because Western Civilization is failing that people like A. Huxley are drawn to Yoga.

At about 5.30 P.M. “X” burst into a peal of laughter to which Sri Aurobindo reacted by asking:

There was no reply, only a silence of suppression. But at 6.30 P.M. the laughter was repeated and instead of Sri Aurobindo asking anything X himself complained to Sri Aurobindo that “Y” was making him laugh. The reply was:

All assembled by the side of the cot and there was complete quiet. One member yawned and another yawned in response. The result was a subdued bubble of laughter.

There was reference to a letter from another Sadhak relating his symptom of yawning at night.

Sri Aurobindo: That reminds me of the science of Augurs in Greece. There used to be Government Augurs who used to be called in to interpret omens and signs; and from that a college of Augurs came into existence. There — in the college the professors used to be quite grave and serious,— they gave lectures on Augury with grave faces; when afterwards they met together they used to laugh among themselves.

By the way, we have got mutilated news today; they have dropped two important words. Instead of saying “the Italians are marching” (into Djibuti). If the Italians march into Djibuti the French can march into Tripoli as counter-attack.

Sri Aurobindo: No, I will be greatly surprised if they can defeat the French. In that case Mussolini must have changed the Italian character tremendously.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It was by their superior air-bombs, mustard-gas poisoning that they succeeded.

Disciple: Fisher (the historian) says that German army in the last war was the greatest and the best army ever organized in the world.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. They are the most organized and able soldiers in the world except the Japanese. But the Japanese are numerically less and financially poorer.

Even so during the last war the Germans could not throw up any remarkable military genius like Foch. If Foch had been the Commander-in-chief before, the war would have ended much earlier.

Sri Aurobindo: They are unsurpassed but the war depends not on fighters but on generals.

Disciple: The British consul here says that the Chinese are no good as soldiers and the Russians are good in defensive warfare. The Germans are trying to expand in the Ukraine. After that Hitler might come to central Europe.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But that will at once combine Russia, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia. These small minor powers will be afraid of their own safety.

Disciple: I don’t understand why Germany joins Italy in attacking France. According to European astrology Hitler’s stars are with him till Dec. 1938.

Sri Aurobindo: Why! Hitler himself has said in his “Mein Kemp” that Germany is not safe without the destruction of France. And France says the same thing about Germany. They have chosen this time, perhaps, because they think that France has been weakened by the general strike. But they lost sight of the fact that the invasion will bring the whole France together.

Disciple: I read in the paper today that a group of people in England are shouting that America belongs to them — as a counter move to Italian claims.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they can claim Germany, and also Denmark and Italy too for that matter.

Sri Aurobindo: But we thought they would not do anything till early next year. They are trying to strike now, perhaps, because they think that France has been divided by the General strike. But war will bring the whole nation together at once. In any case, we find that the Germans are enjoying Christmas.

Sri Aurobindo: You have seen what Chamberlain has said? “England is not obliged to help France in case of war with Italy”. But if Italy combines with Germany one can’t say.

Disciple: In case there is a general war India will have an opportunity for independence.

Disciple: She will refuse to co-operate. I think the resignation of the Congress Ministries were due to the threat of war in Europe.

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is what is called Chaitya Purusha in the heart, while the Causal body is at present Superconscious. They are not the same.

Disciple: It is the Superconscious existence that later on is called “Self” in Vedanta. According to some people Raman Maharshi has realized the Self.

Sri Aurobindo: From what Brunton (Paul) has written it does not seem so. He speaks of the “voice in the heart” that would mean the Psychic Being.

Disciple: I have heard about Raman Maharshi’s experience from a direct disciple of his: One day the heart centre opened and I began to hear “I”, “I” and everywhere I saw this “I”.

Disciple: Different spiritual persons say different things. How to find out which is the highest? Our choice is not necessarily that of the highest.

Mother: Each one goes to the limit of his consciousness. I have met many persons in Europe, India and Japan practicing yoga under different masters. Each claimed that his realization was the highest, he was quite sure about it and also quite satisfied with his condition, and yet each one was standing at a different place in consciousness and saying that he has attained the highest.

Mother: By what criterion? If you ask them they say “it is something wonderful but can’t be described by the mind.” I was with Tagore in Japan. He claimed to have reached the peace of Nirvana and he was beaming with joy. I thought: “here is a man who claims to have got the peace and reached Nirvana. Let us see.” I asked him to meditate with me and I followed him in meditation and found that he had reached just behind the vital and the mind: a sort of emptiness. I waited and waited to see if he would go beyond; I wanted to follow him. But he would not go further. I found that he was supremely satisfied and believed that he had entered Nirvana.

Mother: That is to say, there is a fundamental truth of consciousness. But that is not so easy to reach.

Mother: That is another question. First you must realize about the limit of consciousness and the difference of the place where people stand.

The choice is mostly in answer to your need and it is governed by your inner necessity. Sometimes, the choice is made by instinct by which the animals find the right place for their food. Only, in the human being it acts from within. If you allow your mind to discuss and argue then the instinct becomes veiled. When you have made the choice the mind naturally wants to believe that it is the highest you have chosen. But that is subjective.

Mother: Satisfaction? One can’t depend upon feelings and sensations. for, very often they misguide. Satisfaction is quite a different thing. There are people who are not satisfied in the best conditions, while in the worst conditions some are quite satisfied.

Look at the people in the world around; they are very happy with their conditions. Again, there are people whose satisfaction depends upon their liver — a brutally materialistic state. Also there are people who suffer extremely and yet their inmost being knows that there is the path for reaching the goal.

Disciple: There are certain signs given by the Shashtras by which one can judge.

Sri Aurobindo: What Shashtras? One can’t believe in all that is said in the Shashtras.

Mother: Besides, that may be all right for Indians; what about the Europeans? You can’t say that they have not realized any truth?

Then the Mother took her leave and went for meditation. There was a pause of silence for some time. Then Sri Aurobindo asked:

Disciple: They are common and found everywhere. They are given in the Gita: Equality, Love for others, even — mindedness etc.

Sri Aurobindo: They are, rather, conditions for realization. All experiences are true and have their place. But because one is true one can’t say that the other is false. Truth is infinite. There are so many ways to come to the Truth. The wider you become the higher you go. The more you find, there is still more and more. For instance, Maharshi (Raman) has his experience of “I” but when I had the Nirvan-experience I could not think of an “I”; — however much I tried I could not think of any “I”. The world simply got displaced. One can’t speak of it as “I”. It is either “He” or “That”. That I call Laya. Realization of the Self is all right; Laya was a part of a realization which is much more comprehensive.

When I do not accept the Maya-Vada it is not that I have not realized the Truth (behind it) or, that I don’t know “the One in All” and “All in the One”, — but because I have other realizations which are equally strong and which can not be shut out. The Maharshi is right and everybody is also right.

When the mind tries to understand these things, it takes up fragments and treats them as wholes and makes unreal distinctions. They speak of Nirguna as the fundamental (experience) and Saguna as derivative or secondary. But what does the Upanishad mean by “Ananta Nirguna” and “Ananta Saguna”? They can’t be thought of as different. When you think of Impersonality as the fundamental Truth and Personality as something imposed upon it and therefore secondary, you cut across with your mind something which is beyond both. Or, is it not that Personality is the chief thing and Impersonality is only one side, or one condition of Personality? No. Personality and Impersonality are aspects of a thing which is indivisible. Shanker is right and so is Nimbarka. Only, when they state their Truth in mental terms there is a tremendous confusion. Shanker says “It is Anirvachaniya” — indiscribable by speech — and “All is One.” Nimbarka says: There is Duality and Unity: while Madhava says: “Duality is true.”

The Upanishads speak of “Him by knowing whom all is known.” What does it mean? That Vignana is not the fundamental realization of the One. It means the knowledge of the principles of the Divine Being; what Krishna (in the Gita) speaks of “Tattvatah” One cannot know the complete Divine except in the Supermind. That is why Krishna said that one who knows him in the “true principles of his being” is rare, “Kashchit”. The Upanishads also speak of the Brahman as Chatushpada “having four legs, or aspects”. It does not merely state “All is the Brahman” and it is over. The realization of the Self is not all. There are many things beyond that. The Divine Guide within me urged me to proceed, adding experience after experience, reaching

higher and higher, stopping at none as final, till I arrived at the glimpses of the Supermind. There I found the Truth indivisible and there everything takes its proper place. There, Nirguna and Saguna — Impersonality and Personality don’t exist. They are all aspects of One Truth which is indivisible.

In the Overmind stage knowledge begins to rush in upon you from all sides and you see the objects from all points of view and each thing from all points. All of them tend to get related to each other and there the Cosmic Consciousness is not merely in its static aspect but also in its dynamic reality: it is the expression of something Above. When you become Cosmic even though you speak of your self as “I” it is not the “I,” — the ego, the “I-ness” disappears and the mental, vital and the physical appear as representatives of that Consciousness. Ramakrishna speaks of that state as the form of ego left for action. When you reach the Supermind you become not only Cosmic but something beyond the Universe — Transcendental, and there is indivisibility of unity and individuality. There, the Cosmic and the Individual all co-exist.

The same principle works out in science. The scientists at one time reduced all multiplicity of elements to Ether and described it in the most contradictory terms. Now they have found the Electrons as the basis of Matter. By difference of position and number of electrons you get the whole multiplicity of objects. There also you find the One that is Many, and yet is not two different things. Both the One and the Many are true and through both you have to go to the Truth.

When you come to politics, democracy, plutocracy, monarchy etc. all have truth, even Hitler and Mussolini stand for some truth.

This is a very big yoga,— one has to travel — I think “X” will not take all that trouble — (Sri Aurobindo said referring to a disciple.)

Sri Aurobindo: You are not called upon to do it. Even for me it would have been impossible if I had to do it myself; but at a certain stage heavens opened and the thing was done for me.

The topic seemed to have ended. But “X” prolonged by saying: my friend “K” asked Maharshi if attainment of immortality was possible. But the Maharshi would not say anything by way of reply. But “K” persisted then he said; “It is possible by Divine Grace.”

Sri Aurobindo: That is hardly an answer. Everything is possible by Divine Grace. There are two things about immortality: one, the conquest of death. It does not however mean that one would never die. It means leaving the body at will. Second, it includes the power to change or renew the body. There is no sense in keeping the same body for years; that would be a terrible bondage. That is why death is necessary in order that one can take another body and have a fresh growth. You know Dasharath lived for sixty thousand years. He did not know what to do with such a long life and began at the end producing children! Have you read Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah?” It shows how silly an intellectual can become. And what a ridiculous farce he has made of Joan of Arc? He speaks of her visions as projections of her own mental ideas and decisions. Shaw is all right when he speaks of England, Ireland and Society; but he can’t do anything constructive. There he fails miserably.

These intellectuals like Russell when they talk of something beyond their scope they cut such a poor figure: you can see what he writes about the “introvert.” They can’t tolerate emptiness or cessation of thought and breaking away from outside interests! If you ask them to stop their thoughts they refuse to accept it and at once come back from emptiness. And yet it is through emptiness one has to pass beyond.

Sri Aurobindo: By quietude of the mind. Above the Mind there is not only the Infinite in itself but infinite sea of peace, joy, light, etc. — above the head. The golden lid — Hiranmaya patra — intervenes between that which is above Mind and what is below. Once one can break that lid those elements can come down at any time one wills, and for that, quietude is necessary. There are people who get those things without quietude, but it is very difficult.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, a veil or a wall, if you like. The vital with its surface consciousness, the emotional with its disturbances and veils and one has to break through these and get to what is behind them. There, one finds the heart. In some people the higher force works behind the veil because it would meet with many obstacles if it worked in front; it builds or breaks whatever is necessary till one day the veil is withdrawn and one finds oneself in the Infinite.

Disciple: Does the Higher Force work all the time, even when there is no aspiration in the individual.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. In those who have the inner urge, the intermittent action of aspiration itself may be due to the action of the Higher Force from behind.

Sri Aurobindo: First, to want only that. It is difficult, is it not? In that case you have to wait; yoga demands patience. The old yogas say that one has to wait twelve years to get any experience at all. After that period one can complain; but you said that you had many experiences. So, it is not so bad.

Disciple: Yes. I told you that meditation used to come to me at my place spontaneously,— at any time and I had to sit down and meditate. Sometimes, it used to come to me while I was just going to my office and the experience of peace etc. used to last for some days. But sometimes for a long period nothing happens. One should get some experience at least once in a fortnight.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, it is not in the physical head but in the subtle body, the Mind trying to ascend towards the Higher Consciousness.

Disciple: If one dreams or sees visions of seas, hills, etc.,— what do they mean?

Sri Aurobindo: These are symbols; the sea of energy, the hill of the Being with its different planes and parts,— the Spirit at the summit. These visions are quite common,— one sees them as the mind and the heart expands.

Disciple: I felt at one time that my head was at the Mother’s feet. What is it, Sir!

Sri Aurobindo: It is the experience of the psychic being. So, you had the psychic experience.

Disciple: I told you how I had it and lost it through fear that I was dying. But I could not recognize this experience as psychic (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: It is this “I” that comes in the way. One must forget it and experience as if it were happening to somebody else. If one could do that it would be a great conquest. When I had the Nirvana experience I forgot myself completely. I was a sort of nobody.

What is the use of your being Mr. so and so, son of so and so? If your “I” had died it would have been a glorious death.

Disciple: What happens when the human consciousness is replaced by the Divine Consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: One feels perpetual calm, perpetual strength,— one is aware of Infinity, lives not only in Infinity but in Eternity. One feels the immortality and does not care about the death of the body, and one has the consciousness of the One in all. Everything becomes the manifestation of the Brahman. For instance, as I look around the room I see everything as the Brahman — it is not thinking, it is a concrete experience,— even the wall, the book is Brahman. I see you not as X. but as a divine being in the Divine. It is a wonderful experience.

Mother: That is not the habit here. It is the play of the forces, or rather the play of adverse forces, that tries to test the Sadhak. If you refuse to listen to them or remain firm, then they withdraw. People here have plenty of difficulties already. Why, add new ones? To say that we purposely test them is not true. We never do it, never.

Mother came in for meditation and went away early at 6-45. But she did not go to the evening meditation before nearly 7-25 or 7-30.

Disciple: In meeting the needs of the daily life, say for instance, preparing our own cloth here; my friend who has come from Bombay wants that we should introduce spindles and looms to prepare our clothes. Whether and how far such self-sufficiency is desirable in Ashram like ours?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question of how far it is desirable, it is also a question of how far it is practicable? No objection to spinning or weaving. How would “N” like to go on spinning?

Sri Aurobindo: There are all sorts of mental ideas, or rather mental formations which can be carried out and which are being carried out at the other places but this Ashram is not the fit place for carrying them out.

They all point out to institutions like Dayalbagh. In that case you have to direct all your energies in that channel (leaving the Sadhana on one side).

In other organizations they impose discipline and obedience from outside by rule of force. There people are obliged to take their orders from some one.

But here we don’t impose such discipline, (from outside) and therefore you can hardly get people to work together. It is because of their ego and their idea of mental independence. Even if you want to do that kind of work there are two things you must guard against.

2. You have to guard against ambition. There is a natural tendency to cut a figure before the world, to hold that the Ashram and the Ashramites are some thing great, that must go.

Lastly there is health — unless the doctor promises to opathise them (Sadhaks) into health.

Work as a part of Sadhana is all right, but work as a part of spiritual creation we cannot take up unless the inner difficulties are overcome. It is not that we do not want to do it but here it is not mental-construction that we want but spiritual creation. It is here left to the Mother’s intuition. Even then there are difficulties.

Sri Aurobindo: If you have silence you have peace, but the opposite is not true. That is to say, you may have peace but not silence.

Sri Aurobindo: No. Not necessarily. It may be full of the positive presence of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: No. Not necessarily. As I said, it can be full of the presence of the Divine or it may be Mental peace — accompanied by a sense of emptiness which may be dull to the mind but it is the emptiness for something higher to come in and fill it.

Disciple: In that emptiness — Shunyam — there is a great release. Is it not?

Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes. It is a very pleasant state. These people, like Russell, don’t understand what this emptiness means. They try to go in and immediately they find themselves empty. They do not like it. They think that all that comes into the consciousness comes from outside. They have no idea that there are inner things with which the being can be filled.

Disciple: But you said in one of your letters to “D” that one must be prepared to pass through the period of dryness.

Sri Aurobindo: There is an experience of neutral peace of mind which may be dry and dull to the ordinary man.

Sri Aurobindo: Certainly; why not? When I talk of silence I mean inner silence. It is perfectly possible to hear and do all sorts of things and retain that inner silence.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not silence that is dynamic — but you can become dynamic having that inner silence. You can also remain without doing anything. It depends.

People who are dynamic can’t remain without doing something. They do not realize that if they have the inner silence the effectivity of their work is increased a hundred fold.

Some Maratha came when I came to Pondicherry, inquired what I was doing: when he heard I was doing “nothing”, he said “it is a great thing if one can do it. It is a capacity to do nothing”!

Disciple: There is one gentleman who actually sealed up his lips with something so that he may not be able to speak.

Physical and vital tapasya can give you something. It can give you physical and vital control, though that is more a Nigraha — repressed control — rather than anything else.

Sri Aurobindo: Experience of peace and bliss is a spiritual realization. If one gains control of the vital being by the influence of the Self — that is a divine realization.

Disciple: But one can have the necessary control by the mind — rather than try such physical and outward control.

Sri Aurobindo: These things may be steps to the Divine; for example Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the defects that are important but whatever leads to the upward growth, to the Divine, adding something to his stature, is a gain to the human progress towards the Light. No upward progress is to be despised.

There was hearty laugh over the thesis of a Marathi writer with Socialistic tendencies who tried to prove that Swami Ramdas was a socialist!

Disciple: Some of the Sadhaks seem to become too delicate,— a small cut or even smell of burning ghee upsets them. Sometimes other people who cannot understand this say this is mere feinting.

Sri Aurobindo: They used to brand the body with hot iron to see if the man was in trance or not! They thought perhaps that it might be only deep trance and not Nirvikalpa Samadhi! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: There are cases of people who, when under hypnotic influence, are unaffected by pins being introduced into their bodies. And also there are cases where the man is made to stretch out his hand and even two or three strong people cannot bend it. There are also cases in which sugar tastes bitter under hypnotic influence. And the question is whether sweetness or any other property is in the subject — as in the sense of beauty — or in the object.

Sri Aurobindo: There are no physical causes, these phenomena are due to supraphysical causes and there the laws of the physical do not apply.

Sri Aurobindo: The question is whether experience of sweetness is a common reaction of all human beings, or has the object anything in it corresponding to the experience of sweetness.

Disciple: But something of the property of the object persists, like the effect of medicine in opathic doses, in the smallest quantity retains the quality.

Mother: I do not believe that the phenomena were due to hypnotism. In hypnotism you impose control on another man, the subject, i.e., your will replaces his will.

But I know what I have seen. In most cases I have seen that both the hypnotizer and the hypnotized lend themselves unconsciously to the influence of occult forces. Anything that takes place in that condition is due to the influence of those forces. I know one case,— an extraordinary case, of exteriorization in which almost the material,— the vital and the vital-material, form of the subject was separated from the body of the hypnotized person. If the hypnotizer controls the man and if he has good will, it may do the “subject” no harm. But in most cases he keeps himself aloof to direct the person and cannot take charge of the body and in the interval it is some other forces that take possession of the body.

It is dangerous to do these things except under guidance, or in the presence of somebody who knows these things. You find people speaking languages in that unconscious condition which they do not know at all. It is because some of their being in the past, or subconsciously, knows the language and in that state, a contact is established between the part of the subconscient and the man speaks the language. It is not as if the hypnotist willed that: “the man shall speak a particular language” and the man begins to speak that language even though there may be no part in him that knew the language. Such a thing is impossible. Only, if there is a part that knows and if one can establish a contact then he can speak that language.

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. It is useful for knowledge of the physical and also for mastery over death, it is essential.

There is an ancient prophesy in the Jewish Cabala

that the kingdom of God would be established in humanity when the man will come who would have the power to die and come back, i.e. take up his body again,— after death. It is essential to know what is death if you want to conquer it. That shows that the ancients foresaw the need for the knowledge and also that of transformation of the physical.

It is curious how some people can easily separate their subtle bodies from the physical, say in three or four days even. They go out of the body and see their body lying in front of them, while in other cases they do not succeed.

This knowledge is also useful in curing diseases. For instance, it is perfectly easy to prevent diseases and to cure them if you have the knowledge of these planes. There is what is called “the nervous envelope”, which is an intermediary between the subtle and the gross body. It is that which acts as a sheath protecting you against all attacks of diseases. If the nervous envelope is intact no disease can come to you. In most people, with aging, this envelope wears out and then gradually the forces are able to penetrate and pierce it. That is one of the causes of death.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; and if you can see what is necessary you can put it in. In order to keep it in tact you must have quiet, a balanced life, rest, etc. People generally spoil it by excitement and other irregularities.

In the case of exteriorization done by the Tibetans, a thin thread is maintained when one leaves the body

and if that is snapped the man may not be able to return to his body.

Disciple: There are cases of Tibetans who expose themselves to ice without any bad reactions and also there was report of the messenger who practically flies throughout Tibet carrying the tidings of the lama.

Disciple: There are so many miracles reported about Sj. Bijoy Goswami. Do you think they are all true?

Sri Aurobindo: I have no personal knowledge of them. But I believe most of the miracles attributed to Bijoy Goswami are more possible with the subtle than with the physical body.

Sri Aurobindo then recounted the story of how Mother was once on the point of death in Algeria when she was practicing the yoga with Theon and his wife both of them great occultists. Madame Theon particularly was a remarkable woman.

The Mother exteriorized and visited Paris and met her friends. The exteriorization was sufficiently material to enable her to write on a piece of paper with pencil. The Tibetans are more familiar with occultism than with spirituality.

The Europeans are more taken up with the occult things. They either believe everything or nothing. That explains their attraction for Tibet, Bhutan and other places of occult atmosphere. Now-a-days stories and novels are being written with these themes. Japanese Zen Buddhism, and also Chinese Laotze have also attracted their attention.

I also wrote some stories but they are lost; the white ants have finished them and with them has perished my future as a story-teller. It is a pity that the translation of Megh Duta which I did is lost. It was well done. Most of my stories were occult.

Disciple: X’s expression showed the usual gesture which to the company present indicated the coming of a question.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, on yoga? It gives a sort of excitement or an impetus to the vital being but the general effect does not seem to be sound or healthy.

I fasted twice: once in Alipore jail for ten days and another time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was in full yogic activities and I was not taking my food, and was throwing it away in the bucket. Of course, the Superintendent did not know it, only two warders knew about it and they informed others saying: “The gentleman must be ill; he will not live long”. Though my physial strength was diminishing I was able to raise a pail of water above my head which I could not do ordinarily.

At Pondicherry while fasting I was in full mental and vital vigour. I was even walking eight hours a day and not feeling tired at all, and when I broke the fast I did not begin slowly but with the usual normal food.

Sri Aurobindo: One draws the energy from the vital plane instead of depending upon physical substance. Once in Calcutta I lived for a long time on rice and banana. It is a very good food.

Sri Aurobindo: At best one can draw the conclusion that it can be done. Once R. C. Dutt called me to dinner and was surprised to find that I was taking only vegetarian diet; while he said he could not live without meat. With the vegetarian diet I was feeling light and pure. It is only a belief that one can’t do without meat; it is a question of habit.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if you know the process. The Europeans sometimes fast for that purpose but in their case it is the mental idea that works. You start with the idea of being well or ill, and it happens accordingly.

Sri Aurobindo: In the case of neurasthenic and hysteric persons the nervous envelope is damaged.

Sri Aurobindo: All the diseases come from outside. The force of the disease pierces, what the Mother calls, “the nervous envelope” and then enters the physical body. If one is conscious of the nervous envelope,— the subtle

nervous sheath, then the disease can be thrown away before it enters the physical body, as one throws away the thoughts before they enter the mind.

Disciple: “X” told us once that she used to have the headache which was just above the head and it was very severe. We laughed at it because we could not believe that head-ache could be above the head.

Sri Aurobindo: How do you know there can’t be such a head-ache? If the consciousness can be lifted above the head and remain there why not the head-ache?

The body is a mere mass of responsive vibrations; everything comes from outside and finds a response in the body.

Disciple: If everything comes from outside then what are we? What belongs to us?

Sri Aurobindo: In one sense nothing belongs to you. The Physical is made up, one can say, of various predispositions, energies of the past, and what you have acquired in this life. These are there ready to act under favourable conditions, under the pressure of nature. It is Universal Nature that gives the sense of “I” or “I am doing everything”. This “I” and “mine” have no meaning except in another sense.

Disciple: The other day I could not understand what you said about fundamental personality. What is the truth behind personality?

Sri Aurobindo: There are two things: Personality and the Person, which are not the same. The true person is the eternal Divine Purusha assuming many personalities and

it is thrown in Time as the Cosmic and the Individual for a particular purpose, use or work. This true Person is all the time conscious of its identity with the Cosmic. That is why liberation is possible.

Sri Aurobindo: It is either, or both. In the static aspect one realizes the pure Self as the Infinite, One, without movement, action or quality.

In the dynamic liberation, it depends upon where and how you experience the unity. If it is in the mind you feel your mind as one with the Cosmic Mind; in that case your own mind does not exist. If you feel the unity in the vital, then your vital being becomes a part of the cosmic vital, one with cosmic life. You can experience the Unity on the physical plane; then you feel your body as a speck of Universal Matter. Or, the identity can be above the Mind, by breaking open the lid that divides the Mind from the Infinite. Just as there is a wall that separates the psychic being from the outer nature, so also there is a wall above the head. You break the wall or, what is called the lid, and you feel yourself as the Infinite, and your individual self in the Infinite. That opening can be either vertical or horizontal. This realization makes dynamic liberation possible,— not merely a liberation of Laya.

Disciple: I think he means that illness may come in the course of Sadhana for purification.

Sri Aurobindo: That is a different thing. It can be a circumstance in the sadhana.

Disciple: When I was a new-comer here and used to have physical trouble, people said it was due to Sadhana and so I used to hide it from you lest you should stop the use of your Force.

Disciple: Some Sufis and Bhaktas, devotees, take illness and other troubles as gifts from the Beloved,— the Divine. So, can one say that everything comes from the Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: They are right in a way. They take everything as coming from the Divine and it is a very good attitude if one can truly take it. Whatever happens is with the sanction of the Supreme. If you neglect the chain of intermediate causes there is a Superior Cause to everything.

Disciple: If a thing happens due to our negligence, can we say that it happened by the Divine’s sanction?

Disciple: Would there not be some danger in that attitude? We may shirk our responsibilities and lay it on the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: I said about the Bhakta — the Devotee, not about everybody. For the Bhakta what happens is the best and he takes it in that light.

For the Yogi who has to conquer these things they will come, otherwise there would be nothing to overcome. It would be no real conquest at all. One can always feel the difficulties as opportunities, and in one sense one can say that whatever happens is for the best. Hostile forces also are recognized as hostile, but from another standpoint they become the Divine power throwing out attacks for the work to be done. Ultimately all powers are from

the Divine, they assist in the work. They throw up difficulties to test the strength. It is the Divine that has created the opposition and it is the Divine who sends you the defeat so that you may conquer the difficulties hereafter. This is necessary also to counter the ego’s sense of responsibility. At one time I experienced the hostile forces as the gods trying to test my strength. You have to act not for success but for the sake of the Divine, though it does not mean that you must not work for success. Arjuna complains to Sri Krishna in the Gita that he speaks in “double words”: saying “do not be eager for the result” but at the same time he said “fight and conquer.”

Disciple: There was a letter from our friend “X” in which he has tried to show that the Gita is a book on psychoanalysis and that Sri Krishna was a great psycho-analyst! He psycho-analyzed Arjuna and worked out his complexes. He was very much perturbed at your denunciation of Freud’s psycho-analysis in the “Bases of Yoga.” You have run down the greatest discovery of the modern times.

Sri Aurobindo: Psycho-analysis means that the subconscient is there in man and it influences the consciousness. It means to say that if you suppress anything it goes down into your being and comes up in queer and abnormal forms.

Sri Aurobindo: They say it is inconscient. Then how does it throw up everything and raise symbols in your consciousness? Modern psychology is only surface deep. Really speaking a new basis is needed for psychology. The only two important requisites for real knowledge of psycholiogy are:

Sri Aurobindo: God knows how! It began very early perhaps. When I landed on the Indian soil a great calm and quiet descended on me. There were also other characteristic experiences — at Poona on the Parvati hills and then in Kashmir on the Shankeracharya hill,— a sense of a great infinite Reality was felt. It was very real.

Then at Baroda Deshpande tried to convert me to yoga; but I had the usual ideas about it — that one has to go to the forest and give up everything. I was interested in the freedom of the country. But I always thought that the great figures of the world could not have been after a chimera and if there was such a Power

why not use it for the freedom of the country?

Barin used to do automatic writing at Baroda. Once the spirit of my father appeared on being called. He gave some remarkable prophecies. When asked to give proof about his identity he mentioned the fact of having given a golden watch to Barin — which none in the company knew. And then he spoke of a picture in Devdhar’s house. They tried to check up and found no picture there. The spirit when told about it repeated it and asked us to look again. On consulting the old Mother of Devdhar she said there was an old picture which had been plastered over.

About Tilak, when questioned, the spirit said: “He will be the man who will remain with the head unbent when the work will be on trial and others will bow.” Then we called Ramakrishna He did not say anything. Only at the end he said: “Mandir gado” — “build a temple”, which we at that time interpreted as starting Mandirs — temples — for political Sanyasis, but which I later interpreted correctly as, “make a temple in yourself.” I began Pranayama—breathing exercises — in about 1905. Engineer Devdhar was a disciple of Brahmananda. I took instructions from him on Pranayama and started on my own. I practiced Pranayama at Khasirao Jadhav’s place in Baroda. The results were remarkable: I used to see many visions, sights and figures; (2) I felt a sort of electric power round my head. (3) My powers of writing were nearly dried up, after the practice of Pranayama, they revived with great vigour. I could write both prose and poetry with a flow. That flow never ceased since then. If I have not written afterwards it is because I had something else to do. But the moment I want to write, it is there. (4) My health

improved,— I grew stout and strong and the skin became smooth and fair and there was a flow of sweetness in the saliva. I used to feel a certain aura round the head. There were plenty of mosquitoes there but they did not come to me.

I used to sit more and more in Pranayama but there were no more results. It was at this time that I gave up meat-diet and found a great feeling of lightness and purification in the system. Meat is a Rajasic food. Vivekananda recommends it to the Indians. It gives a certain force and energy in the physical. It was for that the Kshatriyas did not give up meat in India. From Tamas you pass to Rajas and Vivekananda was not quite wrong.

There came a Sanyasi who gave me a Stotra of Kali,— a very violent Stotra ending with “Jahi” “Jahi” — “kill”, of securing Indian freedom. I used to repeat it but it did not give any results.

Once I visited Ganganath (Chandod) after Brahmananda’s death when Keshwananda was there.

With my Europeanized mind I had no faith in image-worship and I hardly believed in the presence of God. I went to Kernali where there are several temples. There is one of Kali and when I looked at the image I saw the living presence there. For the first time, I believed in the presence of God.

At one time — in Sadhana — I used to try all sorts of experiments to see what happens and how far they are related to the truth. I took Bhang — Ganja — hemp — and other intoxicants as I wanted to know what happens

and why Sanyasis and Sadhus take these things. It made me go into trance, and sometimes sent me to a superior plane of consciousness. (But reliance on these outer stimulants was found to be the greatest drawback of this method.)

I met Lele when I was searching for some guidance and practicing meditation under his guidance. I had the Nirvana experience in Sardar Majumdar’s house in the room on the top-floor. After that I had to rely on inner guidance for my Sadhana. In Alipore the Sadhana was very fast — it was extravagant and exhilarating. On the vital plane it can be dangerous and disastrous. I took to fasting at Alipore for ten or eleven days and lost ten pounds in weight. At Pondicherry the loss of weight was not so much, thought the physical substance began to be reduced. It was in Shanker Chetty’s house. I was walking eight hours a day during twenty-three day’s fast. The miraculous or extraordinary powers acquired by Yogis on the vital plane are not all true in the physical. There are many pit-falls in the vital. These vital powers take up even a man like Hitler and make him do things by suggesting to him — “It shall happen”. There are quite a number of cases of Sadhaks who have lost their Sadhana by listening to these voices from the vital-world. And the humour of it all is that they all say that they come either from the Mother or from me!

1. By realization of the spirit above and of its nature of purity, knowledge etc.

Sri Aurobindo: The second method does not remove the ego but makes it harmless it would therefore help one spiritually. Complete removal of the ego takes place when one identifies oneself with the Spirit and realizes the same Spirit in all. Also when the mental, vital and physical nature is known to be derivative from the Universal Mind, universal vital and the universal physical then the same result ensues. The individual must realize his divinity i.e. his identity with the Transcendent or the Cosmic Divine.

Generally, when one realizes the Spirit, it is the mental sense of the ego that goes, not the entire ego-sense. The dynamic nature retains the ego — especially the vital ego. So, the best thing would be to combine the two — for the psychic attitude of humility helps in getting rid of the vital-dynamic-ego.

The complete dissolution of the ego is not an easy thing. Specially important is the removal of mental and vital ego, the other ego of the physical and of the subconscient can be dealt with at leisure. That is to say, they are not so absorbing.

As I said, humility helps in the removal of the vital ego, but one must remember that it is not outward humility.

There are many people who profess and show the

utmost outward humility, but in their hearts think: “I am the man!”

Disciple: “X” when he came for a short day, he found that you lacked the virtue of humility or modesty.

Sri Aurobindo: How does he know? Perhaps I did not profess like some other people that I was nothing. I could not do that because I know I am not nothing.

Sri Aurobindo: There was a sort of voluntary self-effacement, I liked to keep myself behind. But I can’t say that I was more modest within than most people.

Disciple: Mahatmaji, when he finds somebody in disagreement with him on principle, would say: “He is superior to me, he is my elder, etc; but I differ from him”.

Sri Aurobindo: Does he really consider the other one superior, that is the question. When I differed from some one I simply said “No” or “I don’t agree” and kept to my view. The answer given to Suren Banerji when he approached me for a compromise at the convention of Moderates and Nationalists, was “No” and I kept stiff. Perhaps one may not call me modest.

At the Hugli Conference we, the Nationalists, had the majority. But in order to keep up unity the Nationalists were asked by me not to oppose the compromise resolution. The Nationalists all went out. The Moderate leaders were very angry that the people did not follow their tired and veteran old leaders and so completely obeyed young leaders. Suren Banerji could not realize the

difference between old, upper middle class leadership, due to their influence and money and the new leadership of those who stood for a principle and commanded a following.

It was at that time that people began to get the sense of discipline and of obeying the leader’s orders. They were violent, but at the word of the command they used to obey. That paved the way for the Mahatma. Ashwini Kumar Dutt used to jump and say: “This is life”.

Suren Banerji had a personal magnetism and he was sweet-spoken, he could get round anybody. His idea was to become the undisputed leader of Bengal by using the nationalists for the sword and the moderates for the public face. In private he would go up to and accept the revolutionary movement. He even wanted to set up a provincial board of control of the revolutionaries! Barin once took a bomb to him and he was full of enthusiasm. He even had a letter from Suren Banerji, when he was arrested at Manik Tola. But in the court they hushed up the matter as soon as Norton pronounced S. N. Banerji.

Disciple: Aundh State has given a very fine constitution to the people. It has conferred wide powers on the Panchayats. Such constructive work among the villages would prevent communism. They are thinking of introducing co-operative farming.

Sri Aurobindo: Co-operative farming is an excellent thing; it would develop agriculture. But dictatorship of the

proletariat is a different thing. It may have a very fine constitution on paper, but it is quite different in practice. In such a system all men are made to think alike.

Religion is a different affair, it is voluntary; but country is quite different from the church. You can’t choose your country. If you make all people think alike there can’t be any human progress. If you were to differ from Stalin or Lenin you would be liquidated.

These dictators have remarkably few ideas: Take for example Hitler. He believes that:

Sri Aurobindo: All governments are robbing, some with legislation, some without. You can well imagine the condition in which you have to give 50% of your income as taxes and have to manage with the rest as best you can.

Sri Aurobindo: It is another form of robbery and yet in spite of it all, I don’t understand how France produces only 250 aeroplanes as compared to 1000 of Germany!

I don’t know what these governments do with the huge sums they get. There is a sufficiently honest administration in England. The public are uneasy about the war.

Smuggling there almost seems a virtue, because it is robbing the robber! (laughter)

Disciple: There is now a movement for separating the C.P. Marathi — speaking and Hindi — speaking. It has weakened the Congress.

Sri Aurobindo: Nagpur was a very good centre of the Nationalists. The two portions — Marathi and Hindi — should have been separated to begin with.

Disciple: Can the ego be removed by the psychic attitude and by the realization of Self?

Sri Aurobindo: Psychic humility takes away the egoism but not the ego; removing of the ego of the natural individuality is not the work of the psychic. The psychic depends upon and maintains the natural individuality. The psychic is there, so that the natural individuality would turn to and progress towards the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: Ego is removed by the realization of the Spirit; that is, by attaining to the spiritual consciousness Above, which is independent of Nature, which is self-existent. That Spirit is One in all. Realization of that

removes the ego, because then one identifies himself with the Spirit.

Disciple: What then replaces the “I” in the divine individual? What is the nature of the psychic individuality?

Sri Aurobindo: In the case of psychic individuality the man may feel the ego of the Sadhu — the Saint — the Bhakta — the devotee, or the virtuous man. He may also get rid of egoism by imposing on the nature one Spirit and a feeling of sympathy for all humanity. But that is not the same as getting rid entirely of the ego. The psychic clears the way for the removal of the ego.

Sri Aurobindo: Generally, when one realizes the Spirit, it is the mental sense of the ego that is abolished; but the vital and the physical still retain their egoistic movements. That is what most Yogis mean when they say “It is nature”. They mostly allow it to run its course and when the body drops, it also drops; but, it is not transformation. That is what Vivekananda meant when he said that “human nature cannot be changed, that it was like a dog’s tail, you can straighten it if you like, but as soon as you leave it, it is curved again.”

Sri Aurobindo: It means that the subconsciousness has in it certain gathered powers which impose themselves on the human being.

Sri Aurobindo: In order to change human nature you have to work from level to level; you reject a thing from

the mind, it comes to the vital. When you reject it from the vital, then it comes to the physical and then you find it in the subconscient.

There is a central point in the subconscient that has to be changed. If that is done, then everything is done. It is from there that resistance rises from Nature — that is what Vivekananda meant. To effect complete transformation you have to bring down everything to the subconcient, and it is very difficult.

Disciple: How can one replenish the exhausted nervous being? Can it be done by drawing energy from the Universal Vital or by the help of the Higher Power?

Sri Aurobindo: Both ways can be combined: One can draw from the Universal Vital and the Higher Power can also work. But there should be no Tamas, inertia, and other excuses.

Sri Aurobindo: When we were living in the Guest-house, we passed through a brilliant period of Sadhana in the vital. Many people had dazzling experiences and great currents of energy were going round. If we had stopped there — like other Yogis — we would have given rise to a brilliant creation, or, would have established some kind of religion; but that would not have been the real work.

Disciple: Could a great progress in the conquest of the physical being have been made at that time?

Sri Aurobindo: If the Sadhaks had taken the right attitude, then with the gain in the vital it would have been easy in the physical, in spite of difficulties. But that was not

done. Then we came down to the physical. Those brilliant experiences disappeared and the slow difficult work of physical transformation remained. There — in the physical — you find the truth of the Vedik rik — censurers are always ready telling — “you can’t do the thing, you are bound to fail”.

Disciple: Would it then mean that the new people who would come to the yoga would have no experience of the mental and the vital planes?

Sri Aurobindo: They can have, if they hold aloof. Only, they can’t help the pressure on the physical nature as it is in the atmosphere.

There are cases that differ: there is some one X who made very good progress in the mind. In another case the Sadhak became aloof and progressed; but the moment he came to the vital, the whole thing seemed to have stopped.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is only apparently lost. But if he cannot go further, then his yoga stops there, that is all.

Sri Aurobindo: Certainly they can. I know cases, where they go on very well making good progress.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, in a sense; but the conditions may be more exacting, and the demands made on them may be

high. You had an easy time. You were left to do, more or less, as you liked in your mind, and the vital and other parts. But when the change in the subconscious has to come about, many will find it difficult; there will be some who will progress and others who will not and will drop out. Already some like X had dropped out, when the Mother took a decision about his vital being —“you will have to change”. Before that he was swimming in his art and other things, but as soon as this came he dropped out. All these things — attachments, sex-impulse etc. — finally find refuge in the subconscient. One has to throw it out from there — destruction of the seed in the subconscient is necessary, otherwise it would sprout again, as we see in the case of some Yogis.

Disciple: Can one have these things in him when there is complete union with the Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: What is the “complete union”? For instance, Ramakrishna asked the Divine Mother not to send him “Kama” — sex-impulse — and he succeeded, but all cases are not like that. It is quite possible to reject something centrally and totally — that is to say, completely — but one can’t make general rule about these things.

Our yoga is like a new path made out in the jungle and there is no previous road in the region. I had myself great difficulties; the suggestion that it was not possible was always there. A vision which the Mother has sustained me: the vision of a carriage moving towards the highest peak on a steep hill. The higher summit is the transformation of Nature by the attainment of the Higher consciousness.

Disciple: Is there nothing that can be taken as established informally in all the yogas?

Sri Aurobindo: In this yoga you have to go on working out again and again the same thing. Thus it becomes a long drawn out struggle, one falls and rises, again falls. Take for instance, Nirvana, quietude and samata. I had to go on establishing them again and again till when I had done it in the subconscient this accident came. It can be a test.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, it is the ignorance and the Divine is working out from there. If that was not so, what is the meaning of the life?

Everything looked all right and it appeared as if I was going on well with the work, then the accident came. It indicated that it is when the subconscient is changed that the power of Truth can be embodied; then it can be spread in wave after wave in humanity.

Disciple: Can one way that snoring is the protest of the subconscient against somebody’s presence? (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Against whom? against whose presence when one snores alone! (laughter)

Disciple: We read in the papers about the conversion of John Middleton Murry to theism. It was Hitler’s statement after the purage that he “embodies justice and law”,

that, he dispenses with “trials” — which made Murry consider him as the Anti-Christ. It seems Gandhian non-violence has also appealed to Hitler. He wants to become a village pastor and stop the flow of villagers to the cities. Gandhi has written about Hitler’s regime that the sufferings of Bishop Niemuller are not in vain. He has covered himself with glory. Hitler’s heart may be harder than stone, but non-violence has power to generate heat that can melt the stonier heart. What do you think of that?

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid, it would require quite a furnace! (laughter) Gandhi has mainly to deal with Englishmen and the English want to have their conscience at ease. Besides, the Englishman wants to satisfy his self-esteem and wants world-esteem. But if Gandhi had to deal with the Russian Nihilists — not the Bolshevites — or the German Nazis then they would have long ago put him out of their way.

Disciple: Gandhi is hopeful about the conversion of Hitler’s heart or about the German people throwing him over.

Sri Aurobindo: Hitler would not have been where he is if he had a soft heart. It is curious how some of the most sentimental people are most cruel. Hitler, for instance, is quite sentimental. He weeps over his Mother’s tomb and paints sentimental pictures.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Men like Hitler can’t change, they have to be bumped out of existence: There is no chance of their changing in this life. He can’t get rid of his cruelty — it is his blood.

Not that the British can’t be brutal and sentimental too. But they can’t persist as the Germans and the Russians in their brutality. The Englishman may be sentimental, but he likes to show off that he is practical, prosaic and brave. In the Russian, you find a mixture of cruelty and sentimentalism. He can break your neck and in the next moment embrace you. The English man behaves quite well, if you give him blows on his face when he treats you badly.

Disciple: In Fiji islands there was the case of a Punjabi from a good family, who went there as an indentured labourer. An Englishman was his supervisor and used to beat him every day, in spite of his doing the hard allotted work.

One day the Punjabi got fed up and caught hold of him and threw him on the ground and went on giving him blows. Then the Englishman said “that will do!” He got up and shook hands with him and the two became great friends! (laughter)

Disciple: There was the case of Shamakant, the tiger — tamer, an athlete of Bengal. While he was traveling some Tommis came and tried to show their strength. He knocked them so well that they were extremely glad to get out of the compartment at the next station. They did not expect a Bengali to be so strong.

Another time the train at Howrah was stopped, as there was a fight between an Englishman and a Bengali. There was a cry of “Bande Mataram” and the whole train came out.

Sri Aurobindo: That was the sudden transformation during the Swadeshi days. Before that the people used to

tremble before an Englishman in Bengal. The position was even reversed.

I remember when I wanted to do political work I visited Bengal and toured the districts of Jessors, Khulna etc. We found that the people steeped in pessimism, a black weight of darkness weighing over the whole country. It is difficult now a days to imagine those days. I was travelling with Deva Vrata Bose; he was living on plantains and speaking to people. He had a very persuasive way of talking. It was at Khulna, we had a right royal reception, not so much because I was a politician, but because I was a son of my father. They served me with seven rows of dishes and I could hardly reach out to them, and even from others I could eat very little.

My father was very popular at Khulna; wherever he went he became all powerful. When he was at Rangpur he was very friendly with the magistrate there. We went to his cousin’s place in England afterwards, the Drewettes. It was always the doctor (i.e. K.D. Ghose) who got things done at Rangpur. When the new magistrate came he found that nothing could be done without Dr. K.D. Ghose. So he asked the Government to remove him and he was transferred to Khulna. It was since that time that he became a politician. That is to say, he did not like the English domination. Before that every thing Western was good! He wanted, for example, all his sons to be great; at that time to join the I.C.S. was to become great. He was extremely generous. Hardly anyone who went to him for help came back empty handed.

Sri Aurobindo: I could not. In fact, I was the cause of his

death. He was having heart-trouble and the Grindlays sent a wire to him that I had started by a certain steamer. In fact I had not; and that steamer was sunk near Portugal and so when he heard the news he thought that I was drowned and he died of that shock.

Sri Aurobindo: In the beginning. But afterwards he sent less and less and ultimately he stopped altogether. I had my scholarship at Cambridge but that was not enough to cover the fees and other expenses. So once the tutor wrote to him about money. Then he sent the exact sum for the fees and wrote a letter lecturing to me about extravagance! (laughter)

But it was not true; I and my eldest brother at any rate, were living a quite Spartan life. My brother worked with Henry Cotton’s brother in the Liberal association (Kensington) and used to get 50 shillings a week. On that and a little more we two managed to live. We had bread and a piece of bacon in the morning; at night some kind of pastry. For the winter we had not overcoat. After one year like that to talk of extravagance was absurd. But Mono Mohan could not stand it; he went out and lived in a boarding house and ate nicely without money.

There was a tailor at Cambridge who used to tempt me with all sorts of clothes for suits and make me buy them; of course, he gave credit. Then I went to London. He somehow traced me there and found Mono Mohan and canvassed orders from him (!) Mono Mohan went in for velvet suits, not staring red but aesthetic and used to visit Oscar Wilde in that suit.

Then we came away to India but the tailor was not to be deprived of his dues! He wrote to the Government of Bengal and to the Baroda State for recovering the sum from me and Mono Mohan.

I had paid up all my dues and kept ?4/a- or so. I did not believe that I was bound to pay it, since he always charged me double. But as the Maharajah said, I had better pay it, I paid.

Sri Aurobindo: He was very proud of our political career. He used to say: “There are two and a half men in India — my brother Aurobindo and Barin — two, and half is Tilak!” (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: He used to play the poet: he had poetical illness and used to moan out his verses in deep tones. Once we were passing through Cumberland and it was getting dark. We shouted to him but he paid no heed, and came afterwards leisurely at his own pace. His poet-playing dropped after he came to India.

Sri Aurobindo: He was not at all poetic or imaginative. He took after my father. He was very practical but very easy to get on with. He had fits of miserliness.

The question of Barin when he came to Baroda and stayed for sometime was: How can I stay with Khaserao or Madhave Rao for months and years without quarreling?

Mother: Do you know about a school of opathy in Switzerland which is very famous in Europe? It prepares medicines also. They have books in which symptoms are grouped together and remedies are indicated for a group of symptoms. It is a very convenient method; only, you have to have the book; or good memory. But are you allowed to practice opathy without license?

Disciple: But Dr. S was telling that using great potencies might harm, or even kill the patient. It is dangerous if everybody beings to practice it, they say.

Disciple: Yes, in cities where there is Mohammedian population, and in Muslim states. In Delhi there is the Tibbi college founded by Hakim Ajmal Khan. It seems, it is the only school of Unani medicine in the whole of Asia. Students from Turkey, Egypt and Afghanistan used to come there to learn. Ajmal Khan was the direct descendent of the court Hakim to the Mogul Emperors. Where from is it derived?

Sri Aurobindo: It is from the Greek school. They use animal products and salts. Besides curing which is common to all the systems the Unani lays claim to rejuvenate the human system. Many diseases which require operation for their cure in Allopathy are cured by Unani and Ayurvedic medicines without operation.

There were many specific cures known in India but I am afraid they are getting lost. I remember the case of Jyotindra Nath Banerji who had a remedy for sterility from a Sannyasi and he used it with success. Many cases of barrenness for ten or fifteen years were cured within a short time. The direction for taking the medicine were very scrupulously to be observed. He knew a remedy for hydrocele.

Mother: Do you know about the Chinese medicine? Once they had a rule that you paid the doctor so long as you were well. All payment stopped when one became ill, and if the patient died they used to put a mark on the doctor’s door to show that his patient had died.

But the Chinese method of pricking the nerve and curing the disease is very remarkable. The idea is that there is a point of nerve where the attack of the disease is concentrated and if you prick the point, or the Devil, on the head, the disease is cured. They find out this nervous point from the indications that the patient gives, or sometimes they find out by themselves also.

Disciple: I do not think that any system of medicine can succeed in curing all diseases. I believe that only yogic power can cure all diseases.

Disciple: Even that is not unconditional; otherwise, it might be very nice. There are conditions to be fulfilled for the yogic power to succeed.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you expect that the yogic power, or consciousness will simply say “Let there be no disease and there will be no disease”?

Disciple: Not that way. But cases of miraculous cures are known, that is, cures effected without any conditions.

Sri Aurobindo: That is another matter. Otherwise, the Yogi has to get up every morning and say “Let everybody in the world be all right” and there would be no disease in the world! (laughter)

There was a controversy about a child who was underage and had an intense aspiration to remain in the Ashram, i.e. to be under Mother’s protection and guidance. But being under the guardianship of her parents the child could not carry out her inner wish. Ultimately the parents, particularly the Mother, took the child away.

Sri Aurobindo: She — the child — has developed character and intelligence quite beyond her age. When she wrote to us she used to cast reflections on the world and on people that was even beyond a grown up woman. She is remarkable for her age.

The Mother has found it difficult to bend her. It is true, the Mother does not love her. It is an accident that she is born in that family; she is quite unlike her parents. Besides, she has found out that the Mother used to manage her by lying.

Disciple: In the papers we find that Stalin has made allegations against Trotsky; can there be any truth in them?

Sri Aurobindo: The idea is first to drive out the European from Asia, but the Japanese will go about it silently without bragging.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a prophesy among the Sannyasis and also Lele used to tell us that there is no chance of freedom by fighting.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not so easy. Naval equipment is not enough; without a strong army it is very difficult to conquer India.

Disciple: Congress ministers are trying to introduce military training in U.P., C.P., and Bombay. But Sir Sikander

Hayat in the Panjab is counting the distinction between martial and non-martial races.

Sri Aurobindo: That was introduced by the British to keep down India by depriving her of military races except the Pathans, Gurkhas, Panjabees etc. But every part of India had its empire in the past. The whole of India can have military equipment and training in a short time.

Sri Aurobindo: They also want independence; only they want “Mohammedan independence”.

Disciple: Spain in Europe seems to be like India. But if France gets Spain it would be difficult for England.

Sri Aurobindo: It will be worse for France; by the spring the intentions of the Axis powers will be known.

Disciple: It is the short-sighted policy of the Allies, that has given chance to Hitler.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is England that got afraid of the French ascendancy on the continent and encouraged and pressed Germany into power. She wants to maintain the balance of power. Hitler aims at France.

France always wants to placate Italy; but England came in the way with “sanctions”. They could not save Abyssinia and made an enemy of Mussolini.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think Blum’s Socialist government is for non-intervention. The Socialists in France did nothing when they were in power.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, perhaps Roosevelt has secret news about the intentions of Nazis. It is not a question of meddling in European politics, but of being eaten last! (laughter) There are at least some people in America who understand this thing.

Mother: Ask Sri Aurobindo; The Mother replied smiling. When I came here I used to drive them away by yogic force. Sri Aurobindo did not approve of it.

Sri Aurobindo: Because one is making friendship with them in that way. What is the sin? If you don’t kill them they will go and bite some other people and won’t it be a sin to you?

Disciple: He will be liable to sin of course. I don’t mean we don’t kill at all, for instance, we are breathing microbes.

Sri Aurobindo: At any rate, I know of a story in history. When Mahmed of Gazni invaded (West) India he defeated a Jain king through the help of his brother. The dethroned king was left in charge of his brother, who was now the king. He did not know what to do with his brother; so, he dug a pit below his throne and threw him in it and closed it up. As a result he died: so that his brother did not kill him! (laughter)

Mother: Then, in order to be a true Jain, one must be a yogi and then with yogic power he can deal with these animals and insects?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? One must kill in self-defense. I don’t mean that you must hunt out the snakes and kill them. But when you see that they are endangering your or other lives, then you have every right to kill them.

Mother: The plants have also life. So, you mean to say

that mosquito is more precious then rose? You don’t know perhaps how the plants feel.

Disciple: There are people who say that killing a dog or a cat is not so sinful as killing a man.

Sri Aurobindo: Life is life — whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference in that between cat or man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage perhaps.

The topic of opathy came up. It was said that it has cures for religious depression and anger also.

Disciple: Anger, the scientists say, is due to the reaction of glands. But can “egoism” be cured like that?

Disciple: “The fact you are conscious about the ‘ego’ makes half the cure — is it not?” he said turning to Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: To detach oneself from all these things; to think as if all these things belong to the other being, or some one else. As one goes on doing this the Purusha gradually withdraws its sanction from the Prakriti and

the Prakriti loosens its hold over nature till a spiritual control takes place. But if one associates oneself with Nature, Prakriti, then the Purusha becomes slave to it. Rejection, of course, is the stronger way. One has to reject these things before they enter, as I did the thoughts. It is more powerful and the result also is quick.

There is also a mental control; but there too it is the nature of Mind trying to control the nature of the Vital. It has only a temporary and partial control. The thing is rather suppressed within and can come out at any opportunity.

I heard of a Yogi in Benares bathing in one of the Ghats. In the neighbouring ghat a Kashmiri woman came to bathe. As soon as he saw her he fell upon her and tried to outrage her. That is evidently a case of mental control. But by Sadhana — yogic effort — sometimes things which have not been there come up. I have heard about it from many persons.

In my case, I saw anger coming up and possessing me. It was absolutely uncontrollable when it came. I was very much surprised as to my nature. Anger has always been foreign to me.

At another time while I was an undertrial prisoner at Alipore jail, a terrible catastrophe was avoided. Prisoners had to wait outside for sometime before entering the cells. As we were waiting a Scotch Warder came and gave me a push. The young men around me became very excited, and I did nothing but gave him such a look that he immediately fled and called the jailer. It was a communicative anger and all the young men rallied round to attack him. When the jailer, who was rather a religious man arrived, the Warder said, I had given him

a “subordinate look”. The jailer asked me and I told him that I have never been used to such treatment. The jailer pacified the whole group and said while going, “we have all to bear our cross.”

Disciple: Is Rudra Bhava something like Ramakrishna’s story about the snake, where anger is to be shown without really feeling it.

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. It is something genuine, a violent severity against something very wrong. e.g. the Rudra Bhava of Shiva. Anger one knows by its feeling of sensations, it rises from below, while Rudra Bhava rises from the heart. I will give you an instance. Once X became very violent against the Mother and was shouting and showing his fists. As I heard the shouting, a violent severity came down, that was absolutely uncontrollable. I went out and said: “Who is shouting at the Mother? Who is shouting here?” As soon as he heard it he became very quiet.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he was otherwise an earnest Sadhaka, became conscious of many things and made progress. But these fits used to come to him now and then. Some Asuric forces used to catch hold of him and he could not control himself. It is these forces that have failed him in the yoga, for I hear he does not have these attacks now outside. When under the grip he could not see that he was in the wrong. He blamed me and the Mother, though we had been very lenient and considerate to him. After sometime he was able to recognize his faults, admit it and promise that he would not do it again. But again he would be swept away by the forces. Sometimes his vanity and self-respect would come in

the way of his admitting the fault immediately. That is the mistake. One must not justify one’s wrong. If one does that, it comes again and makes it more difficult to get rid of it.

Disciple: “Y” after doing so much Tapasya is thinking of leaving the Ashram and that too after twelve years of stay.

Sri Aurobindo: What Tapasya? If complete control was given to him he would have stayed perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo: Everyone will arrive at the Divine. “A.” once asked the Mother if he will realize God. The Mother replied that he will, unless he did something idiotic and cut short the life, and that is what he has done.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a job which perhaps “X:” would like to attend to. The letter is addressed to Sri Aurobindo Ashram under the belief that it is a person. The man wants sporting items, and “predictions”. He says:

As you are a Yogi you “can go into trance” and we will share the profits!! Let me know your terms. Then he says: “If you don’t want to take the money, you can give it to the poor!” (turning to X.). You can go into trance or send “Y” into it. I will be a hard nut.

I have no objections to sharing profits, only we share in profits not in loss!! Besides, we class ourselves among the poor, so we won’t have to find them! (pause)

All sorts of half-crazy people are writing to us from every where, Germany, America etc. I wonder how they manage to get the address.

Disciple: It must be from the magazine in which A wrote an article giving his Ashram address from which he thought “Aurobindo Ashram” was a man! In that case, A must take up the matter and reply to this man.

Disciple: I am afraid, we won’t get anything in spite of the proposal to share profits. In Gujarat there was — I believe even now is — a small group of seekers under the guidance of late Narsimhacharya who got an offer from American promising fabulous returns from small investments. The followers were all taken in, Lakhs of rupees were sent and nothing was heard afterwards.

Disciple: On the other hand some Indian Sannyasis are making good business in America. One of them has modernized yoga; his method is a combination of business and yoga, “sets of lectures and courses of meditation” etc.

Sri Aurobindo: “R” was telling “M” that if he went to America he would be a great success. I think “R” was right. Some of these people have the character of a charlatan.

Disciple: But coming to his question: is it possible to predict sport items and cotton prices and share-fluctuations?

Disciple: I knew an astrologer who impressed my cousin very much and when he acted under his guidance his predictions did not at all come true.

Sri Aurobindo: But I had a remarkable experience at Baroda, not of an astrologer but of one who knew thought — reading. His predictions as an astrologer were all wrong. The manager of my house, Chhotalal, took me to this man and asked me to have some questions in my mind.

As we entered his room he told me all the four questions that were in my mind; and the curious thing is that three questions were clearly formulated in my mind, but the fourth one had escaped me; but he caught that also; it was remarkable.

Disciple: Is anything being done to get some of your books published in America?

Sri Aurobindo: No. Besides, I don’t know if the Americans are interested in profound questions. Swami Nikhilananda, I heard, wrote an article about me which Miss Wilson Nishta says, was profound. The editor of the paper returned it saying, “it won’t interest the Americans,” and he had to change it and make it what it is.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. If they would not want sensation and change the openness to new ideas would be a very great advantage. As it is all one can say is that there are more people in America interested in these things than in

Europe, though in Europe also the number of people who are interested in these things is increasing now a days.

Disciple: One Thompson, graduate from Oxford, according to his own statement, came to the gate and I had some humourous exchange of sentences with him. He was very queer.

Sri Aurobindo: It must be he, who recently sent me a long letter on philosophy. I don’t think, he himself was clear about what he wrote. What was your exchange with him like?

Disciple: I was just going out when the Sadhak at the gate-duty asked me to help him to understand this new arrival, Thompson. I asked him: May I know your name, please? He: “Name! I have no name”. “Apart from philosophical considerations about the reality or unreality of it, a name is a necessity in this unphilosophical world” I said. He: “You can call me anything you like — it matters very little to me”. I: “It is not a question of my calling you anything. Unfortunately there is the Police Department which will demand a passport with a name, and that matters.”

Disciple: I remember a difficult question: “Is it in keeping with yoga to get oneself insured?”

Sri Aurobindo: Thakur Dayananda would say “no”. He was always depending on God and did not believe in storing things. If you don’t get anything, it means, God wants

you to starve. The whole group used to sing and dance, there was an excited expression of their Sadhana, some kind of vital demonstration.

They had the faith that nothing could happen to them; when the police came to arrest them they were all singing and dancing. Seeing them in exaltation the police went away. They thought that they were invincible. The Government sent soldiers to arrest them. Then their faith was shaken. One of the prominent disciples, Mohindra De also lost his faith, though he was the victim of his own enthusiasm.

Disciple: How can the vital forces of oneself be drawn out when one is in contact with the Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: The force that supports the work, the vital force, is different from the Divine Consciousness.

Disciple: Do you remember one Kulkarni who came and was complaining that his vital force was being drawn out?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He was surrounding by forces of disintegration, chaos, disaster and death. And he was unconsciously throwing it out.

Disciple: One of us then told you that Kulkarni had strength and intensity. Then you had said something remarkable: “You call it strength? It is some wild intensity of weakness — not strength!”

Sri Aurobindo: Intensity with solidity pays; but without support below, it does not lead to anything. “B” was like that and so was “J.”

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. What he did was brilliant but slight, there was nothing below to support, the intensity had no body, so to say. He went because of his ambition, he wanted to be a right-hand man. Mother put a divine entity into him; it left him when he left the place. He has failed all through.

Sri Aurobindo: There are some people who are good as lieutenants, but by themselves they are nothing. “B” is like that. I supported him but he used to leave one thing and go in for another. He spoiled his career through his own fault.

Sri Aurobindo: We know that. To “M” who was coming here he said: “he has caught you by his philosophy” meaning me.

Disciple: Our friend D who has the “eternal doubter” in him met Upen Banerjee at Calcutta and asked Upen whether he believes in God.

Disciple: He said: How can I say I don’t believe in God when I know Sri Aurobindo? I have a measuring rod for men and I can measure them all right; but in Sri Aurobindo’s case I cannot measure him. In case of other

great people they reach a certain point in their growth and then they stop, whereas in his case he is always going on further and further.

Sri Aurobindo: (smiled) I see. Upen also has intensity; he had agnosticism and faith. It is that which makes his writing brilliant. But he could never understand the “Arya”. Why, Rishikesh (Kanjilal) also was one in whom doubt could never get the better of faith and faith could not of doubt! (laughter) He always wanted to fix himself to some anchor,— he could not give up seeking, nor pursue steadily and find an anchor. “The movement will not grow” he used to say. (after a pause) The revolutionaries were quite an interesting lot and though not fit for yoga, one could not feel dull in their company.

Sri Aurobindo: He was. But he was not able to stand the trial of yoga. I don’t think he had the capacity to do the yoga; he had too tall an idea about himself, and he is crude. And as to “Kh” I wonder how he could ever have done the yoga.

There was a humourous sequel to a telegram requesting for “ashes”. It was a puzzle for some time and after some effort the word “ashisha”, meaning “blessing” was rightly understood.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t understand either. When I used to smoke I could have sent at least the cigar ashes. But now I do not smoke!

Disciple: But we are burning here the mosquito-coils. The ashes of the coils can be sent. (laughter)

Disciple: But I think he is asking for Blessings — the post office in receiving the Sanskrit word Ashisha seems to have turned it into “ashes”! (laughter)

Disciple: I read a paper written by Prof. Somesh Bose, a mathematician, in which he mentions that Bholagiri, a Sadhu had meditation with his wife who was dead. He says that he saw them both, his dead wife present “in flesh and blood”. The question is: Is it possible? Also, whether Bholanath materialized his wife or she did it herself? Somesh says, she was everyday present at the prayer time. Can she remain like that in her materialized body almost all the time? Does she live with Bholagiri all the time, or does she come and go? What will materialists say?

Disciple: They will say it is all humbug. (Turning to Sri Aurobindo) But what does yoga say?

Sri Aurobindo: “Many possibilities”. This seems to be a case of temporary materializing, as Bholagiri is present every time. I believe, there is always a difference between material body and a materialized body. This kind of materializing commonly takes place immediately after a man dies. You find that he visits either a relation or a friend. If the fact of his death is not known or if the man is not known to be living far away, people mistake it for an actual physical presence.

There are many authentic cases of this kind. My poetic brother Mono Mohan’s friend Stephen Philips said that his Mother had visited him after her death. Mono Mohan told me the story, ascribing the experience to telepathic communication of the form. But I think it is not mere communication of form or cast by the mind only. There is the vital and the physical part which materializes.

Disciple: You have already cited the other day the case of Lord Strethmore. But is it possible to materialize completely?

Sri Aurobindo: Theoretically, it should be possible, though I have known no case of the same. After the experience we had of the stone-throwing in the Guest-house here, I believe, if the stones could be materialized, why not a human being?

Disciple: The Egyptians preserved the human body after death, with the belief that the soul would return to it after some years. Paul Brunton claims to have met some spirit hoary with age on the hill near the pyramids.

Sri Aurobindo: The Egyptians believed that at the time of death the Ka, the vital being, went out of the man and after a thousand years, if the body was preserved, it would return to it. Brunton, I suppose, materialized the belief.

Disciple: There is a reported case of a Bey whom Brunton met and who revived a sparrow after it was dead. Brunton says that he saw the same phenomenon performed

by Vishuddhananda, “Gandhi Swamy” as he was called. Is it possible?

Sri Aurobindo: That is possible. Just as you can revive a drowned man by pulling his physical organs into function again, that is, by resorting to physical devices life can be restored. If you know how to reintroduce the power that sets the organs to action, after the body is wounded or dead, you can revive the man.

The real question is whether it is the being of the man that comes back to life, or it is some other spirit that wants to live and gets hold of the body. Both are possible, because revival is done in two ways: One, is to bring back the spirit of the man which is still not far away, the other is to get some other spirit that consents to come.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if it has not gone away very far it can be pulled back to the body.

Sri Aurobindo: He is a phenomenon! Do you remember

the name of the person who apologized to us? I wonder whether he offered the apology because his public attack did not succeed.

Disciple: Yes. He seemed to have gathered all sorts of false facts from all kinds of people.

than half a dozen copies. (after a pause) It seems “M” has expressed sorrow for what she did here and explained that she acted under the influence of S and B.

Disciple: The attack by “R” was not of any allegations. His objection was that the Ashram was not doing what he calls public work.

Sri Aurobindo: It is quite a new objection. Nobody expects an Ashram, a spiritual institution, to do work!

Disciple: The Ramkrishna Mission, Gandhi’s Ashram and some other institutions do some public work and so people expect an Ashram to work for humanity.

Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps, because I did political work they expect that I should continue doing it all my life.

Disciple: Not only that, the objection is that so many young men are being drawn away from the field of work.

Disciple: But Gandhi’s Ashram is not a spiritual institution. It is a group of people gathered to be trained to do some work on Mahatma’s principles and methods. One can say that service to the public is one of their aims.

But Subhas wrote against the Ashram recently on the ground that it was attracting away some of the best people from country’s work.

Disciple: I don’t remember if he wrote “best” or “good” for those who came here. He quoted the example of D.

Disciple: Subha’s idea was that D may not do political work now. But when the time came he must be prepared to give up everything and join the struggle.

Disciple: But suppose one gives up everything for country’s freedom, then what is he to do afterwards, except perhaps going to jail.

Sri Aurobindo: D in jail! Perhaps he would write off some stories about his agony.

Sri Aurobindo: At the time of the Gandhi movement some one asked Abanindranath Tagore, why he was not giving up his painting for the sake of the country and take to politics. He said: I believe, I serve the country through my painting in which I have some capacity, that, at

least, is something I know; whereas I would be only a bad politician.

Disciple: Tagore narrowly escaped the Charkha. But it seems Nandlal Bose is turning at!

Sri Aurobindo: He is a man of ascetic temperament. There was an enthusiast who even wrote an article showing that the Chakra referred to in the Gita was the Charkha!

The topic changed to Baroda. Dr. M. mentioned that now the old race course is covered by fine buildings constructed by co-operative Societies and that doctor Balabhai was still alive staying in one of the new buildings. He is nearly eighty-five.

Sri Aurobindo: (After a pause) The mention of Baroda brought to my mind the connection with the Gaekwad. It is strange how things arrange themselves at times. I had failed in the I. C. S. and was looking for a job. Exactly at the time the Gaekwad happened to be in London. I don’t remember whether he called us, or we met him, but an elderly gentleman, whom we consulted, was quite willing to propose Rs. 200/- per month as a good sum. It would be more than ?10/- and it is surprising that he thought it was very good!

But I left the negotiations to my elder brother and James Cotton. I knew nothing about life at that time.

Sri Aurobindo: Before the war, it was quite decent living for ?5/-. Our landlady was an angel. She came from

Somerset and had settled in London — perhaps after she was widowed. She was long suffering and never asked us for money even if we did not pay for months and months. I wonder how she managed. I paid her from my I. C. S. stipend.

It was father’s fault that I failed in the riding test. He did not send money and the riding lessons at Cambridge then were rather costly. The teacher was also careless; so long as he got his money he simply left me with the horse and I was not particular.

My failure was a great disappointment to my father because he had arranged everything for me through Sir Henry Cotton. A post was kept for me in the district of Arah which is considered a fine place. All that came down like a wall. (pause)

I wonder what would have happened to me if I had joined the civil service. I think, they would have chucked me for laziness and arrears of work! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, Madhav Rao Jadhav, myself and Nana Saheb all of us held revolutionary ideas at that time.

Disciple: He has spoken to the youth conference emphasizing the need of military training for the defense of the country. His speech was against the current vogue of non-violence.

Sri Aurobindo: It is good that some one raises voice like

that when efforts are being made to make non-violence the method of solving all problems.

Disciple: But the insistence on non-violence has succeeded in disarming the Pathan of the Frontier. It seems, Gandhi objected to armed volunteers keeping guard over him while he was in the Frontier province.

Sri Aurobindo: And what were they expected to do in case there was an attack? Stand simply?

Sri Aurobindo: This non-violent resistance I have never been able to fathom. I can understand an attitude of absolute non-resistance to Evil, as the Christians say “Resist not the Evil”. You may die without resisting and accept the consequences as sent by God. But to resist passively seems to me meaningless. And to change the opponent’s heart by such passive resistance is something I don’t understand.

Disciple: And the “Modern Review” put in another objection which is worth considering. The article accepts that non-violence may be a good gospel for a great Saint but for the ordinary man to allow evil to triumph so easily — by passive resistance — would not be good for the society. There is no reason to hope that the goonda will change his mind, or heart, if you allow him to kill you.

Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid, non-violence is being applied to other fields whereas its extreme application is meant for spiritual life. Non-violence or Ahinsa as a spiritual attitude and its practice is perfectly understandable and has a standing. You may not accept it in toto but it

has a basis in the Reality. You can live it in spiritual life but to try to apply to all life seems too much. Such an application ignores the great principle of Adhikar,— qualification even as the Europeans do. Also it makes no provision for difference of situations.

Disciple: Mahatma’s point is that in either case, whether with arms or without, you are prepared to die. Then, why not try to die without arms, since armaments are piling up in all nations and there is no end to where it will lead. In the other case you perpetuate passive-resistance while in fighting you perpetuate killing.

Sri Aurobindo: If you bring in the question of expense then the reasons for non-violence, we must admit, are economic and not ethical. (After a pause)

It is a principle which can be applied with success if practiced on a mass scale, specially by unarmed people like the Indians, because you are left with no other choice. But even when it succeeds it is not that you have changed the heart of the enemy, but that you have made it impossible for him to rule. That is what happened in Ireland. There was in Ireland armed resistance also but that would not have succeeded without the passive resistance side by side. Such tremendous generalizations like “passive resistance for all”, “Charkha for all”, “celibacy for all” hardly work.

Photographs of Harnath (Pagal) and Kusum Devi were shown to Sri Aurobindo. A declaration from Matushri

Kusum Haranath — that she was the Supreme Power and that Harnath was one of her forms, was read.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but the doctrine she has proclaimed is not Vaishnava doctrine, it is Tantric.

Sri Aurobindo: In principle it is true; for the Supreme Shakti is the Divine Consciousness and all the gods are from her. It is she who gives out the gods — Shiva and others. It is said that even Shiva cannot act unless she gives him power to act.

Disciple: Harnath had his decisive spiritual experience in Kashmir where, it is related, Gauranga came to him and gave him the “mission”. But his later disciples regard him equal to Gauranga.

Disciple: But where is the difficulty? If the consciousness is ultimately and essentially divine, why should not Gauranga and Harnath be one in consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, there is competition between the two Avatars? Did Harnath proclaim himself as the Avatar?

Disciple: No, but he behaved like one. There are cases of very rapid conversions in case of people who have met him.

Sri Aurobindo: I have found that Vaishnava Bhakti — devotional path — makes for very strong and rapid progress.

Disciple: There is a line of Sadhus in Gujarat, who practice the worship of the Impersonal God.

Disciple: They do not have any personal God, but they worship One who is everywhere, beyond personality. Kabir and some other Saints believe in this. Even when they take a particular Name of God, they mean by it something more than the name. They will say “Rama” but they believe in various aspects of Rama.

Disciple: The couplet says: one Rama is born in Dashratha’s house and is therefore subject to change; perhaps Kshara, One Rama is present in every heart and one that is all-pervading and therefore universal and one Rama is beyond all.

Sri Aurobindo: That seems to be the same thing as Gita’s idea of Vasudeva that is in all and Vasudeva that is the Supreme Absolute — both are the same. I have seen instances in intense Gyana — knowledge — and intense Bhakti (devotion). Devotion of the Impersonal Divine may not be powerful for change; it tends to be more etherialised and the knowledge that enters into it makes devotion less intense or rapid.

Disciple: We have heard that you received guidance from Sri Krishna in your Sadhana: was it from Sri Krishna of the Bindravan or of Kurukshetra?

Disciple: These distinctions between various personalities of Krishna, one of Bindravana and others are of later growth in Vaishnavism.

Sri Aurobindo: They regard Bala Gopal as the Delight aspect or the Delight-Consciousness; but there are older schools of Vaishnavism that regard Krishna as an Avatar of Vishnu.

Disciple: Arjuna could not bear his sight and had to ask him to resume his human form.

Sri Aurobindo: In the Vishnu Purana all the aspects of Vishnu are nicely described. It is one of the Puranas I have read through carefully. I wonder how it has escaped general notice because it is magnificent poetry.

There is a humourous passage in it, where a disciple asks the Guru whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant on the king (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: Then the Guru jumps over the shoulders of the disciple and asks him whether he is on the disciple’s back or the disciple on the Guru’s back (laughter) Then there is a very fine description of Jada Bharata.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know. But it sounds very real in the Purana, where it is placed.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not so early as that; all the puranas are posterior to Buddhism. They are a part of the Brahminical revival which came as a reaction against Buddhism in the Gupta period.

Disciple: The Puranas are even the earliest, supposed to have been written about the 3rd or the 4th century A. D.

Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purana Buddha is regarded as one of the Avatars of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by name but is called “Maya-moha”. Reference to Budha is very clear; it repeats “Budyaswa! Budhyaswa.” It is a fine work.

Disciple: There is nothing in the Veda to justify their claim except one solitary Sukta, called the Vak; Ambhrani

It is a Valkhilya. There Ambhrani speaks of herself as the creatrix of the Gods. Of course one can take Aditi, the Infinite divine consciousness as the root of Tantra if one likes.

Sri Aurobindo: The principle of Tantra may be as old as the Veda but the known Tantras are later.

Disciple: The Vedas are considered the highest authority in India, so everything in India wants to peg itself on to the Vedas — not only Tantra; but art, dancing etc.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t understand this passion for antiquity. What does it matter when a thing took place; Truth is truth whenever it may be found.

Sri Aurobindo: They are eternal because the source of their inspiration is eternal.

Disciple: It is Sri Aurobindo who has said that in his “Synthesis of Yoga.” You are quoting him to himself! (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: The Upanishads came after the Vedas and they put in more plain language the same truth that was in the Veda. In the Veda the language is symbolic.

But the Upanishads are equally great. Even in the Veda there are passages which clearly show that the Vedantic Truth is contained in the Veda. But it is surprising that the readers of the Veda miss those

passages. For instance, the Veda says — “Riten ritam apihitam”, and then “it is That one” that is the source. It is clear that it refers to the Vedantic truth of the One. Similarly, the Upanishads speak of the Vedic symbols. The Ishopanishad speaks of the Vedic gods Sun — Surya and Agni, but you can see that the significance there is symbolic.

Disciple: The Europeans thought that it was not possible to believe that the Vedic Rishis were so advanced — specially in those primitive times.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they are so satisfied when they found the historical interpretation that they did not care for many obvious indications. But you must admit that the interpretation turning Vedic Gods to gases is magnificently ingenious.

Disciple: Was it not Paramashiva Aiyar, a Mysorian who showed that remarkable ingenuity?

Disciple: He is trying to prove in his book on the Veda that the Veda shows the conditions of earth in the glacial period and then indicates its geological evolution. I gave him up when I came upon his explanation of “parame Vyoman” meaning “trough” and “crest” of the ocean waves.

Many riks of Dirghatamas are untranslated even today in spite of all ingenious theories and interpretations.

Sri Aurobindo: You can’t translate them or understand them unless you have the key to the symbolism.

Dr. R’s visit: In course of his talk he remarked in connection with the swelling at the knee joint that all diseases are of the nature of inflammations.

Sri Aurobindo: In what sense are all illnesses inflammations? There could be any setisfactory explanation of it.

The topic of Aldous Huxley’s book “Ends & Means” was taken up by a disciple.

Disciple: Huxley suggests two ways of solving the problems of man. One by changing the existing institutions of education, industries, in fact by modifying social, political, economic and religious institutions. This would bring about a change in the individual. So far as industries are concerned he suggests the creation of small units federated to a Central Organization. Thus it would eliminate large units which are the roots of all troubles. The second remedy he suggests is to change the individual and make him, what he calls “non-attached”, who would practice virtue with disinterestedness. I believe there is a French author who also advocates such new types of industrial institutions.

Sri Aurobindo: That was my idea when I proposed to Motilal to have a spiritual commune. — I don’t call it Commune but a Sangha — a Community based on spirituality and living its own economic life; it would have its own agriculture, and a net work of such communities spread all over the country would interchange its products among themselves.

Sri Aurobindo: I now don’t remember. But I asked him to start hand — looms and weaving.

Disciple: He has tried to take up Gandhian plan after he separated from us; we used to insist on Swadeshi; now they call it Khaddar.

Disciple: The financial condition there does not seem as sound as it made to appear.

Sri Aurobindo: Possibly. I do not know now what they are doing. I heard that some plots were bought in the Sunderbans to start agriculture. But as people were getting malaria, it had to be given up.

Disciple: Is it something like Dayal Bag? I don’t know what spirituality they are having there. It seems as if all their energies are directed to external work and industries.

Sri Aurobindo: That may be due to their large-scale production. I heard that Anukul Thakur also has started work on the same idea.

Sri Aurobindo: No. He may belong to what they call, the Radha Swami School. But he does not belong to Dayal Bag.

Disciple: But to start such a Sangha one must have spiritual realization and may take a long time to start.

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. Ordinarily if one is to wait for spiritual realization it will take time. But all may not have the highest or supramental realization. Spiritual experience is enough for the people and that is not difficult to have. I told M that spirituality must be the basis of the Sangha. Otherwise, your success will be your failure. But he does not seem to have listened to it.

(After a pause) There were other religious communities of this sort before. The Dukhobar Community in Russia was very powerful and well organized, strong in its faith. They held together in spite of all persecution. At last they had to emigrate to Canada. One of their tenets was nudism, which the Canadian Government did not like and they got into trouble. (with a smile) They had at least solved the weaving problem (laughter).

Then the Mormons were famous in the United States. The name of the founder was Joseph Smith, a prosaic name for a prophet. But Bringham Young was a very remarkable man, who really made the commune. Curiously enough one of their tenets, again, was polygamy. Their religion was based on the Old Testament. When they were made to give their religion they became quite like an ordinary man.

Mark Twain said that when the chief was interrogated in the presence of his members he replied that he knew his children by numbers, not by their names — it was inconvenient to remember their names.

There was another community in America which did not allow marriage among its members.

Sri Aurobindo: The Sikhs are the only community organized on a religion. Thakur Dayananda established or tried to establish an order of married Sannyasins.

Sri Aurobindo: The same principle is accepted by the Vaishnavas, who follow the Nityanand — school — they accept a Vaishnavi.

Disciple: All sorts of attempts at collective life seem to have been made and when one sees them all, one is driven to despair like the bald man — who was trying all kinds of remedies to cure baldness — who on looking at king Edward VII’s photo with his shining bald head, said, “I give it up” — (laughter) Have you any idea how the supermind will proceed?

Sri Aurobindo: No idea. If you have an idea the result will be what has been in the past. We must leave the supermind to work it out.

Disciple: But that sort of work has to be based on love. One must have love for everyone.

Sri Aurobindo: Love is not enough. Something more than love is necessary. Unity of consciousness is more important than love.

Disciple: The trouble is, as soon as one begins something one tends to become ego-centric. Quarrel starts like aggravation of symptom in opathy (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: But love also leads to quarrel. Nobody quarrels more than the lovers (laughter). (Looking at X) You know the Latin proverb that each quarrel is a renewal of love. Love is a fine flower but unity of consciousness is the root.

The difficulty is that those who are here receive something of the Higher power and they become ego-centric, then gather it in the vital and turn it to their lower nature. They think, it is their own power. When A came here from Chandranagore he said, “There at

Chandranagore — everybody is a sheep following the shepherd but here everybody is a Royal Bengal Tiger.” (laughter)

Disciple: Somebody also said that here is a zoo where each one is a lion roaring in his den.

Sri Aurobindo: When we were very few and the Ashram had not grown, B and S used to convert all sorts of people to spirituality, they were great. B once caught hold of a young Tamilian who was quite sheepish. B used to meet him. After three or four months of contact it was found, the young man had become quarrelsome, indolent and insolent — a great transformation had come over him — (laughter). It is S who made D a public leader. At any rate, the one thing he did was to make D get rid of all scruples. “Right and wrong do not matter, good and bad are nothing” he used to tell.

Sri Aurobindo: D used to say to Dr. Le Mongnac, “It is impossible for me to fail because I am a God-man.” He said to many people here that he is not afraid because he is Sri Aurobindo’s disciple. He got the power from the Mother and all agree that he is the one man who can do something if he wanted to. Mrs. R used to write: “What has N come to — at Pondicherry? He is writing to us ‘do this’ and ‘do that’, and finds fault with our work”. Of course, they were uarrelling in Japan also when they were there. They had different views on their work.

B came straight from X. X was another great propagandist. He caught any one he could and made him do the Yoga — of course, it was his yoga. He did not think that any such thing as Adhikar was necessary.

Disciple: We had a hard tussle with Mahatmaji’s followers

over the question of transcending morality and immorality in a man of spiritual realization and resultant conduct. They always think that going beyond morality means sinking to immorality. All that does not conform to their moral code is immoral.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, all can’t go beyond morality. So their theory is true in their own field. It is a mental rule and so long as one cannot come in contact with the dynamic Divine source of action in himself, one has to be guided by some law of conduct — otherwise one might take up the attitude: “There is no virtue and no sin, so let us sin merrily.”

What Sri Krishna says in the Gita “Sarva Dharman parityajya” “abandoning all laws of conduct” — is said at the end of the Gita and not in the beginning: And then that is not alone; there is also “mamekam Sharanam Vraja,” “take refuge in Me alone.” But before one finds within oneself the guidance of the dynamic Divine, one has to have some rule to guide himself. Most of the people have to pass through the Sattwa stage. It is only very few that can start above it and the moral rule is true so far as most people are concerned.

Disciple: Can one say that the psychic being always wants transformation? There are people who believe that the psychic being in evolution would and must want transformation. Only the Atman — the spirit — can merge into laya in the infinite. Can not the developed psychic being turn to Laya-merging into the infinite?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it can; it depends on whether it is in front or not. If it is in front then, as I said, it takes charge of the nature and then its aspiration will be for transformation. But the developed psychic being can take any other spiritual direction. It depends on what direction the Divine within chooses. We cannot dictate to the soul

what it shall choose; all are not compelled to transform their nature.

Sri Aurobindo: The psychic transformation is the first one. Many yogis achieve this psychic transformation: it is the pure Bhakta — nature. But all spiritual men are not saints, of course, both can go together, sometimes.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, there is; saints are limited by their psychic nature, but spiritual men are not. The saint, generally, proceeds from and lives in the heart-centre. The spiritual man might live in other higher centres — say, above the head, in the spiritual consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: The saints live in the psychic being, that is, in the Purusha in the heart but the spiritual man might live above the head. I never felt like a saint myself — though Maurice Magre calls me “a philosopher and a saint.” Krishna, for instance, was not a saint. A spiritual man may not always behave like a saint, he may have many other things in him like Rishi Durvasa.

Disciple: But saints are nearer to humanity; they are not like the Ishwar-Koti to whom no laws apply.

Disciple: In this yoga one has to fight like Arjuna, in the battle of Kurukshetra, because it is a yoga of fight and battle.

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily; it depends on the nature of the being. There are some people, for instance, who when they meet the hostile forces in the vital or in dream

begin to fight, while there are others who call for protection. If one has the psychic attitude one need not fight. Fighting is for the mental and the vital man; in the case of the mental type the fight is with ideas.

Disciple: I remember X’s letter referring to Ramprasad’s Song claiming that the Divine must satisfy his demand, because he had sacrificed everything for the Divine.

Disciple: “Claim” based on what? This argument seems to be “you must give me thing because I badly want it.” But what reply you gave to him?

Sri Aurobindo: No, No, don’t do that (laughter). Otherwise, I will have to be as hard as Krishna.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know if he is very kind to the demons. He gives very inconvenient boons and finds it very difficult to wriggle out through them. He is a God who does not care for consequences. Generally Vishnu or somebody else has to come in afterwards to save the situation. Krishna is hard-hearted, they say.

Disciple: I am reminded of Sadhaka X whose Sadhana seemed to be going on very well...who is now attracted

to Buddhism. I do not know if he has been attracted to some woman — but there was some such indication.

Sri Aurobindo: It is sad if it is true. In one of his letters to Y he wrote that one need not be a eunuch in order to be a master of sex......one should guard his realization.

Realization is something very precious and one should guard it and live in it like a fortress. One can go in adding whatever knowledge one wants or gets but always guarding his realization. For instance, it is not at all necessary to give up Bhakti to get Jnana.

After all it is a pity that he should give up the love of Krishna for a mere human girl. I found it difficult to go through his Commentary on the Gita. It is more intellectual, it lacks the life and the heart. Otherwise, it was always a pleasure to read his writings. He seems to have lost the intensity of mental vision, the seeing mind which he had, but I thought that it was due to his turning towards Knowledge.

His attraction towards Buddhism is understandable, because to the European rational mind its rationalism has an appeal. It was first through Buddhism that Europe came to and began to know India. Blavatsky founded Theosophy on Buddhism. Next they understand Shanker in Europe and for many years the Europeans thought there was nothing in India except Shanker’s Adwaita. But if X has taken to Buddhism his sex abhoration is not justifiable. Buddhism is the most exacting path. It is most unindulgent, severe and dry; it is a path of Tapasya.

Sri Aurobindo: That is over-confidence. Perhaps in course of Sadhana some opening has taken place in the vital.

Disciple: But can a Sadhaka fall like that after such fine realizations as he had?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by realizations? There is always the possibility of being Yoga Bhrashta (fallen from yoga).

Sri Aurobindo: I find X’s letter to Y is written with his usual clear vision. He advises Y to guard against mixing up his own feeling of personal wrong with the legitimate decision not to shake hands with one who has wronged the Guru. About A he says, “these people like A, when they take to yoga it is more ornamental than anything else”. It is a fine phrase “ornamental yoga”.

Disciple: (giving a turn to the talk) Nothing seems to have come out of Chamberlain-Mussolini interview. Both parties say, they are satisfied with the results.

Sri Aurobindo: I can’t understand England’s policy. I do not know what she is after. France is being led by England; she is her tail. It is said that Mussolini is waiting for France’s victory, then he will present his terms to France. France’s victory in Spain will be dangerous for France. But it is very difficult to see how England profits by this. For as soon as Italy and Germany have crushed France the next victim will be England. England knows very well Mussolini’s ambition to create an Italian empire. And that means he will try to regain all that once belonged

to Italy. England is deliberately raising Hitler and Mussolini against France and letting her down. I do not know why unless the three want to share the empire of France and then England may try to put Hitler and Mussolini against each other. That may be her selfish, traditional policy, but it is a very risky game.

Disciple: But is it possible? Can England remain aloof when France breaks with the other powers?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? Chamberlain has said that as long as England’s interest are not involved she is not obliged to fight. England will say that Italy’s demands have not been satisfied and so she has gone to war and Germany has joined her. There was no aggression on her part; so, England is not obliged to come to the aid of France; and number of excuses could be given. Blum told a friend who is also a friend of Daladier that he had to betray Czechoslovakia because Chamberlain told him that he will support him as it is diplomatically possible, but in case of war France should not count on England.

Disciple: I wonder why Flandin wants to support France when Blum is against him. You know Flandin even sent telegram to Mussolini conveying his congratulations. Hitler counts Flandin as a friend — he intends to join the Rome — Berlin axis and thus keep out England!

Sri Aurobindo: Italy shall demand after the Spanish question is settled. Italy is almost sure to claim Tunis, Nice, Jibouti. Is Flandin prepared to give them? Italy wants her empire in Africa. So, Tunis and Jibouti are essential for her to be the master in the Mediterranean. Blum is incapable; it was he who applied non-intervention in the Spanish question.

At present it seems two people are flourishing their arms against everybody and the rest are somehow trying

to save themselves. The one man who has seen through the whole thing is Roosevelt, but he is too far and he is not sure of the support of the American people.

Sri Aurobindo: Russia is unreliable. One does not know its military strength. At one time she was supposed to have the biggest air-force. But according to Hindenberg it does not seem to be so.

Disciple: Jawaharlal says that Hitler and his generals did not expect the non-resistance — which they met — from Austria. They were all very much surprised.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the generals were opposed to Hitler, for they were not prepared to fight. Now Hitler will say: “Have you seen that I am right? Things have happened as I told you.”

Disciple: Jawaharlal said that the threatened attack against Czechoslovakia was mainly bluff.

Sri Aurobindo: It can’t be a reliable news; the Germans are too disciplined for that.

Disciple: There is some trouble in Holland, and Germany is threatening to cut off all trade with her and establish trade-route through Antwerp and not Amsterdam.

Sri Aurobindo: If that takes place that will make Chamberlain fight in spite of himself,— England does not want any German navy in the North Sea. But Germany won’t do that unless she wants war with England.

Disciple: When X was working here some new sadhaka met him and asked him: “Who are the advanced sadhaks

here?” — He replied: “I don’t know.” Then when he was repeatedly asked he said: I will tell you, but you must tell it to nobody. There are only two advanced sadhaks here,..you and I (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: This instance of “two” reminds me of a joke of Hugo. Balzac said to a friend that there are two men who know and write French: myself and Hugo. When that was reported to Hugo he said: “That is alright, but why Balzac?” (laughter)

There is another story of a lady who believed the doctrine of eternal hell or heaven — according to which people will either go to heaven or to hell. Some one asked her: Do you know where the people will go? She said: All will go to hell, except myself and the minister — meaning the clergyman, but I have doubts about the minister. (laughter)

Disciple: Very similar is the case of Dr. R. who is here; when he first came here I asked him about opathy. He said: You see, there are four topmost men in the line. One Dr. so & so in Calcutta, other two are there and I came here. (laughter)

Dr. R: That is because you are moving the leg after a long time; it will disappear when you are accustomed to it.

Talk then turned to the world-war and the Congress. Pattabhi was elected President. Patel wanted to settle at Rajkot or go to East Africa.

Disciple: I am afraid if Patel goes to East or South Africa the Indians there would be shot.

Sri Aurobindo: Instead of Patel going there to Africa it is better that Gandhi should go to Hitler. Hitler will say to Mahatma: You follow your inner voice Mr. Gandhi, I my own. There is no reason to say that he would be wrong, for my inner voice may be good and necessary for me, while it may not be so for another man. The very opposite may be good and necessary for another man. The Cosmic Spirit has one thing for Hitler and may lead him in the way he is going, while it may decide differently in another case.

Disciple: That may lead to a clash between the two and the breaking of the instruments.

Sri Aurobindo: It may. There have been people who have believe in fate or destiny or whatever you may call it. Napoleon III used to say: “So long as something is necessary to be done by me it will be in any case; when that necessity will cease, I shall be thrown on the wayside like an outworn vessel.” And that is what exactly happened to him.

Disciple: When somebody asked Napoleon I, why did he plan if he believed in fate, he said: “It is also fated that I should plan.”

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. All men who have been great and strong believe in some higher Force, greater than themselves, moving them. Socrates used to call this Daemon — man’s divine being. It is curious how sometimes even in small things one depends on this voice. Once Socrates was walking with a disciple. When they came to a place where they had to take a turn, the disciple said, “let us take this route.” Socrates said: “my deamon asks me to take the other.” The disciple did not agree and followed his own route. After he had gone a certain distance he was attacked by some pigs and thrown down by them.

There are some who do not follow the inner voice but an inner light. The Quakers believed in that.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know; but some one has said: “see that your light is not darkness.” The strange thing is that this inner voice does not give any reason; it only says: “do this; if you do not do that, bad results will follow.” Sometimes, strangely enough bad results do follow if you don’t listen to it. Lele used to say that whenever he did not follow the inner voice he had pain and suffering.

Disciple: But many kinds of voices are there according to the forces on different planes. I believe it is extremely difficult to distinguish between the right or the true inner voice and false one. There may be voices either from the mental or the subtle physical planes.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite true. Hitler’s friend said about him that what Hitler said today he contradicted tomorrow. I also heard a voice which asked me to come to Pondicherry; of course, it was the inner voice.

Sri Aurobindo: It was impossible to make a mistake about or disobey that voice. There are some voices about which there can be no possibility of any doubt or mistake. Charu Chandra Roy wanted me to go to France — so that we may have no further trouble. When I arrived at Chandranagar he refused to receive me and shoved on to Moti Roy.

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord, we were together in jail and perhaps his jail experience frightened him. At the beginning he was a very ardent revolutionary.

Disciple: Nolini says he was weeping again in the jail. The jail authorities thought that he could not be a revolutionary (laughter) and so let him off.

Sri Aurobindo: No, that was not the reason. It was by the intervention of the French Government, I think, that he got his release. Barin one day walked into his house, gave him a long lecture on revolution and converted him in one day.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? She was one of the revolutionary leaders. She went about visiting places in India to come in contact with the people. She was open and frank and talked about her revolutionary plan to everybody. When she used to speak on revolution it was her very soul that spoke, her true personality used to come

out. Yoga was yoga of course, but it was as if that sort of work was intended for her: that was fire if you like. Her book “Kali — the Mother” is very inspiring, but it is revolutionary and not non-violent. She went about among the Thakurs of Rajputana trying to preach them revolution. At that time everybody wanted some sort of revolution. I met several Rajput Thakurs who had revolutionary ideas, unsuspected by the Government. One Thakur Ramsingh was afterwards caught in our movement and put to jail. He suddenly died out of fright. But he was not a man to be frightened. They may have poisoned him. You know Moropant afterwards turned moderate. More than one Indian army were ready to help us. I knew a Panjabi Sentinel at Alipore who spoke to me about the revolution.

Once Nivedita came to Baroda to see the Gaekwad and told him that his duty was to join the revolution and she said to him: if you have anything to ask you can ask Mr. Ghose. But the Gaekwad never talked politics with me afterwards. But the thing I could not understand about Nivedita was her admiration for Gokhle. I wondered how a revolutionary could have any admiration for him. Once she was so much exercised when his life was threatened. She came to me and said: Mr. Ghose, it is not one of your men that is doing this. I said: No. She was much relieved and said: then it must be a free lancer.

The first time she came to see me she said, “I hear Mr. Ghose, you are a worshipper of Shakti?” There was no non-violence about her. She had an artistic side too. Khaserao Jadhav and myself went to receive her at station at Baroda. She saw the Dharamshala on the station and exclaimed: “how beautiful!” Looking at the new College buildings she uttered: “how ugly!” Khaserao said: She must be a little mad!

Sri Aurobindo: At any rate it is an ugly dome. The Ramkrishna Mission was afraid of her political activities and asked her to keep her activities separate from the mission.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know; whenever we met together we spoke about politics and revolution. But her eyes showed power of concentration and a capacity for going into trance. She had got something in her spiritual life.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But she took up politics as part of Vivekananda’s work. Her book is one of the best on Vivekananda. Vivekananda himself had ideas about political work and fits of revolution. Once he had a vision which corresponded to something like Maniktola Garden. It is curious that many Sannyasins at that time had thought of India’s freedom. Maharshi’s young disciples were revolutionaries. Yoganands’ Guru had also such ideas. Thakur Dayananda was also one such. (Turning to a disciple)

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is he who introduced me through someone else to the Secret Society, where I came in contact with Tilak and others.

He was told yesterday that D was going to fast on his birthday i.e. today. But he had forgotten all about it.

Disciple: I hear he has taken bread and butter in the morning and at mid-day a light meal.

Disciple: There are people who believe that bread and milk can be taken while fasting. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: That is also the custom in Bengal, I believe. That reminds me of a story. Nevinson went to see Tilak and met him in Dhoti. While describing the meeting he said: Mr. Tilak received me naked in his cloth. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: What is the news? Radio: help. a louse in Stalin’s head! Socialize it, then the rest will follow.

Disciple recounted two fine jokes about Russia from “Inside Europe.” Then he said: — I looked up the book; Lindbergh says that soviet air-fleet is not as powerful as it is thought.

Sri Aurobindo: That is very vague. Does he mean that the aeroplanes are not of sound material, or that the pilots

are not well-trained? If he says only that much, that does not give any knowledge. In the fight between Russia and Japan in the frontier, the Japanese admitted that the Russian artillery was remarkable, it does not miss the mark but the infantry is not good; for when they got very good opportunity they did not take advantage of it. While the Japanese army is, perhaps, the best in the world. In spite of overwhelming numbers against them in China, they have been able to conquer Chang kai-shek trumpet, that he would defeat the Japanese in a very short time. They did not reply but at the end of each defeat the Japanese are further than before.

Disciple: They say that the Japanese are not good in the air. They miss their aim many times.

Sri Aurobindo: I do not know about that. A pilot requires at a time concentration on many points. The Japanese are good at concentrating on one thing at a time.

Disciple: Mussolini is asking all Italian firms to close down at Jibuoti, and thus create dissatisfaction. He is trying to cut off the railway connecting Jibouti and Abbyssinia and make another line through Eritria to Asmara.

Sri Aurobindo: That would not make France give up Jibouti because it is an important seal-link between France and her eastern colonies. Even if Flandin and the Premier wanted to give it up the French people won’t.

Disciple: Yesterday we had talk about hearing the voice: is there any standard by which one can judge whether it is a true voice?

Sri Aurobindo: What standard? There is no such standard. How can you judge where it is right or wrong?

Disciple: Then is Hitler who says, “I heard a voice and I follow it”, right?

Sri Aurobindo: How can you say his voice is not true? He has seen that by following it he has been able to get Austria, Czechoslovakia and he has been successful in many other things. Then how can you say it is not a true voice? As I said, the Cosmic Spirit may want him to go that way. Even morally, you can’t say that he is immoral. He is very restricted as regards food and is supposed to have no wife or mistress and leads a controlled life in all other respects. Robespierre was also a moral man and yet he killed many people.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the psychic voice. But the spiritual point of view is quite different. There is no question of right or wrong in it. One goes above all those standards and looks from that plane. But for that it is essential to have the perception — say feeling of the Divine in all. Then one can see Divine in all, veiled behind the Gunas. From that plane one finds that Gita is right in what it says about the Gunas: that man is made to act by the action of the Gunas. There was an angry Sannyasi who came to the Kali Temple at Calcutta. Ramkrishna said about him: “he is a Tamsik Narayanan.” But he could not keep that standard when another vedantin came there and had a concubine with him. He asked the vedantin: why do you keep the concubine? The Vedantin replied: every thing is Maya, so what does it matter what you do, or not do? Ramkrishna said: “I spit on your Vedanta.”

But logically, the Vedantin was right. So long as you believe everything to be Maya you can do as you like. But how will you say which is right? For instance, what will you say about Curzon’s action?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, was he right? He thought he was quite right in what he was doing, while others thought he was wrong. And yet, but for his action India would not have been half as free as she is today. So, the Cosmic Spirit may have, after all, led him to do it to bring this result. There is a Cabalist prophesy: the golden age will come when the Jews will be driven off and persecuted every where. So, Hitler may be bringing that about. There are so many ways of looking at a thing. For instance, this American lady thinks, perhaps, that she is paying us a big sum, but we call it a joke.

Disciple: Then, can one say that one has no responsibility. One can do as one likes —, in that case one becomes a fatalist.

Sri Aurobindo: No, one can’t do what one likes. Every one is not Hitler and can’t do what Hitler does, because it is one’s nature that makes one do things. Your question reminds me of the story of my grand-mother.

She said: “God has made such a bad world. If I could meet Him I would tell what I think of Him.” My grand-father said: “Yes it is true. But God has so arranged that you can’t get near Him so long as you have any such desire in you” (laughter).

When we say: Hitler is possessed by a vital force it is a statement of fact, not a moral judgment. It is clear from what he does and the way he does it.

I remember a young Sanyasi with long nails came to Baroda. He used to stay under trees. Deshpande and myself went to see him. Deshpande asked him: what is the Dharma, the standard of action? He replied, “There is no such standard. It is the Dharma of the thief to steal because that is his nature”. Deshpande was very angry when he heard that; I said it is only a point of view.

But all that does not mean that there is no consequence for one’s action. As Christ said, offence come but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh. There is a law of being which throws upon you the murder, persecution etc., when you inflict suffering on others out of self — will the suffering will come back to you, that is the law of Karma.

Disciple: S used to quote to me the famous verse of Duryodhana. “Janami, Dharmam nacha me pravrittih” I know what is the Dharma but I can’t gather force to do what I should do.

Sri Aurobindo: You have the other verse. “seated in my heart as Thou directest, I act”.

The question comes up seriously when you want to change yourself or change others. Then you say “this should not be” and “that should go” — etc., you introduce a rule of the mind in the vital, but when you go above the mind you come in contact with your Spirit and the nature of that spirit is Light, Truth, Purity. When you observe discipline it is for the spirit, not for the sake of the mental rule. If you want to attain the standard of purity you have to reject what comes in the way. So also about lying. You have to stop lying if you want the Truth, not because of the mental principle of right and wrong, but for the sake of the spirit. There are many parts in Nature: One part may try to reject things that are contrary to the change and contradictory to each other, but another part prevents it. As the Roman poet said: I see the better things but I follow the worse.

Disciple: Vendanta for sometime was the by word for hypocrisy. People used to speak of them as “Bedantins” — meaning two sets of teeth,— one for showing and another for chewing

like the elephant. What is the truth of Vama-marga?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know. It must have been with the idea of taking up forces and pull them high up. Even the sexual act has to be done from a high consciousness. Upanishad also says it is possible.

But to go back to the original point about the law of Nature. We have to understand that all this does not mean that there is no moral standard. Humanity requires a certain standard it helps profess. It is obvious from what Hitler is doing that he is not serving the forces of Light. He is serving what the Jews would call “the forces of unrighteousness”. But from the spiritual point of view, that may also be necessary. As they say “it takes all sorts to make the world.”

But again that does not mean that one should not recognize other planes. For instance, there is the vital plane whose law is force and success. If you have the force you win. If you have speed you outrun others. The law of the mind comes in to act as a balance together to make a mental-vital standard. If you go above then you come to a point where Gita’s “Sarva Dharman parityajya” becomes the principle. Sharanam Vraja becomes the principle. But there if you leave the last portion, “mamekam Saranam Vraja” “take refuge in Me alone” — then you follow your ego and you fall and became either an Asura, or a lunatic or an animal. But even the animals have a sense of right and wrong. It is very well shown in Kipling’s Jungle Book. Have you read it?

Sri Aurobindo: There he shows how the pack falls on the one that fails to keep the standard. By human contact the animals develop that sense even more.

Disciple: That is potential or say, veiled Bhagawan; otherwise we have to accept that world is perfect even as it is.

Disciple: My friend X is hesitating to put you a question; but he is puzzled by what he thinks as the contradiction in what you said yesterday about Gunas.

Disciple: You said that a man like Hitler does what he does because of the action of the Gunas, the modes of nature. In other-words he does what the Cosmic Spirit makes him do and yet he is individually responsible for his actions. It seems contradictory.

Sri Aurobindo: That is generally the case when you state some Truth you have to express it in contradictory terms (laughter). Truth is not always consistent, but the contradiction you notice does not mean that there is no responsibility, or no morality, no right, no wrong. The individual is responsible, for, he accepts the action of the Gunas of nature.

Sri Aurobindo: No. The Cosmic Spirit does not act directly. It acts through the Nature. The Cosmic Spirit acts not through the true individuality but through the individual in Nature. It acts through personality and personality is not the person. Personality is something formed of the mental vital and physical nature. This personality is responsible because it accepts the Gunas — the modes through ego and Nature. As I said, the Cosmic Spirit works through Nature and not direct.

Disciple: But the Cosmic Spirit works its purpose through the individual, by making him carry out its intention.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but that does not mean that the individual is not responsible. The Cosmic is and contains both good and evil.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the Cosmic Spirit that is responsible for both — good and evil, you can’t say it is responsible for one and not the other. Through both — good and evil — and their struggle between Light and Darkness, the Cosmic Spirit works out its purpose in evolution.

Disciple: For example, Duryodhana thought, in the Kuruksetra battle, that he was in the right. He did not know that he was leading to the destruction of his own family.

Sri Aurobindo: But the Cosmic Spirit is not in evolution, while the individual is in evolution. The individual progresses in his evolution by his nature,— he evolves through his nature.

Sri Aurobindo: Certainly. The individual can refuse to submit to nature. For example, Arjuna refused to act accordingly to his nature and eighteen chapters of the Gita had to be told to him to make him fight.

Disciple: Even though the Cosmic Spirit had already slain the warriors, yet Arjuna was asked to be the instrument.

Sri Aurobindo: Real liberation comes when the Purusha awakes and feels himself separate from nature, not bound by it but free and lord.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, normally the Purusha consents to the action of Prakriti but he can withdraw his consent and stand apart. He can be free by getting out of evolution i.e. by being free from the working of ego and nature-personalities.

Disciple: When the freedom of the Purusha is won then it becomes possible for the individual to look beyond the Cosmic Spirit to the Transcendent, and act in the Cosmos according to the will of the Transcendent — is it so?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is to say, instead of being an instrument of ignorant nature you become the instrument of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: No, The Cosmic Spirit is a Personality — not in the narrow sense of personality; it is both static and dynamic.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the psychic being itself that develops, but it guides the evolution of the individual being by increasing the psychic element in the nature of the individual. It is these personalities in nature that are bound.

Disciple: Then it seems that the function of the psychic being is the same as that of Vedic Agni who is the God of Fire, who is the leader of the journey.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Agni is the God of the psychic and, among other things that it does, it also leads the upward journey.

Disciple: How does the psychic carry the personalities formed in this life into another life?

Sri Aurobindo: After death, it gathers its elements and carries them onward to another birth. But it is not the same personality that is born. People easily misunderstand these things, specially when they are put in terms of the mind. The past personality is taken only as the basis but a new personality is put forward. If it was the same personality, then it would act exactly in the same manners and there would be no meaning in that.

Disciple: Does the experience of the Cosmic Spirit correspond to what you have termed the “Overmind”?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but you can have the experience of the Cosmic Consciousness on any other level of consciousness

also. Generally, you have it on the level of the Higher Mind where you feel the two aspects static and dynamic as separate. But as you go above, you find the Overmind overreaches all the other levels and there the two aspects are gathered together and combined in the same consciousness (turning to X) So you see, Hitler is responsible so long as he does not feel that he is not Hitler.

Sri Aurobindo: He feels that he is responsible not only for himself but for the whole of Germany.

When Hitler began he was not like that. He was considered an amusing crank and nobody took any notice of him. But his latest photograph shows him like a criminal, he seems to be going down the darkness very fast. It is the vital possession that gives him his size and greatness. Without this possession he would be a crudely amiable person with some mental hobbies and eccentricities. This possession becomes possible because the psychic being in him is undeveloped. There is nothing in his being that can resist the vital force.

Mussolini has, comparatively, a developed psychic being and a very strong vital being. But in his last photograph he seems to have weakened. Either he is physically unwell or is aging or perhaps he has misused his powers.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, the only Aryans are the Germans. It is they who feel the responsibility and bear the consequences.

Sri Aurobindo: You can’t get rid of responsibility like that, even though you may say, you are not responsible.

You must become free if you want to be free from responsibility. There are three ways, or rather several ways, of attaining that freedom. One is by the separation of the Purusha from Prakriti and realizing it as free from it; another is by realizing the Self, The Atman or the Spirit, from the Cosmic movement. Thirdly by the identification with the Transcendent Above, i.e. by realizing the Parmatma. You can also have this freedom by merging into the Shunyam through Buddhistic discipline.

Disciple: In the experience through the first and second method does the Purusha remain the “witness”

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. It may be witness in the first method because the Purusha separates himself from Prakriti and is then the witness not taking part in action.

But in the second kind of realization the Purusha need not be the witness of the universe, or the universal movement. The Self may remain ingathered without witnessing anything. There are many conditions into which the spirit can pass.

A certain kind of Nirvana is necessary even for our Yoga. That is to say, the world must become, in a way, nothing to you because as it is constituted it is the work of Ignorance. When you realize something of that then only can you enter into and bring into existence the true creation, the world of Truth or Light here.

Disciple: When the Gita says: “You will find the self in all and all in the self and then in Me” — what Self does it speak of?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the Brahmic Consciousness. That is to say, you see one Consciousness in all and all contained in the One Self and then you rise above to the realization of One that is both personal and impersonal and is above both.

Disciple: Is it true that men with spiritual bent are born with Adhikara — qualification — for it?

Disciple: Can one acquire Adhikara — such qualification, i.e. if one has not the Adhikara at first can one get it by some means?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. A man can acquire Adhikara. That is what we mean when we say “he is not ready” and when we say “he can prepare himself” it means he can get the Adhikara.

Disciple: One gets tired of this problem of manifestation. That is to say, it is a very complicated and long process to manifest the Divine in oneself and in one’s life.

Sri Aurobindo: Being tired is not enough. One must have the power to be free, either by moving out of evolution, that is to say, one must get the power to act from beyond the evolution.

Many yogis when they go beyond into the Spirit or the Cosmic consciousness, allow Cosmic nature to act through them without any sense of individual responsibility. They remain concentrated in, or identified with the

Higher Consciousness uncontrolled And you find as X found that the spiritual man uses foul language: of course, the yogi or the spirit in him is not bound by the rules of decency. That is why such yogis act like Jada, Pishacha or Bala — allowing nature to play freely in them.

When one has attained the higher consciousness then, as the Upanishad says, one does not regret: I did not do that which was good, or I did this which is evil. It is not that all yogis act that way. But some of them know the reason, or the necessity — why they act in a particular way, at a particular time. Only, he is not bound by his action.

Another difficulty arises because most of the yogis are very bad philosophers. And so they cannot put their experiences in mental terms. But that does not mean that they have no real spiritual experience. They do not want to acquire intellectual development; for, they wanted only to reach a Higher consciousness and they are satisfied with that. When you look for things the yogi has never tried to have then you get disappointed like the American lady who objected to Raman Maharshi’s spitting and biting his nails. That has nothing to do with his spirituality.

Disciple: Can one say that the aspect of Sat — Pure Being — Consciousness — Chit — is absent?

Sri Aurobindo: No, even in what you call Being Consciousness is there; only, it is held back, or is inactive so to say, while in Chit that aspect is in front. In these matters using mental terms always creats confusion because I have so often said that Sat, Chit Ananda is the prime Reality and no part of it can be thought of as separate.

Disciple: The difficulty arises when one sees many experience of different system of Sadhana then one finds great difficulty of choosing between them.

Disciple: There is no other go. Can not the story of different systems lead one to knowledge?

Sri Aurobindo: It can help in making an approach to the path of knowledge. Philosophy is an attempt to explain to the human mind what is really behind it. But to the western mind thought is the highest thing. If you can think out an explanation of the universe you have reached the goal of mental activity. They use the mind for the sake of using it — that leads nowhere. (Turning to X) So, you see, the universe is not a question of logic but of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: You can know what philosophy preaches, or has to say, by direct experience and something more which philosophy cannot give.

Disciple: The Sankhya division between Purusha and Prakriti in one sense, is very sharp and so it helps one to get away from the bondage of Prakriti.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is categorical. They believe in the two, Purusha and Prakriti, as the final elements. Sankhya and Buddhism were both first understood and appreciated by Europe,— Sankhya because of its sharp distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, which they believe to be jada — inconscient. Prakriti, in Sankhya, is jada and it is the light of the consciousness of Purusha that makes Prakriti appear conscious. They believe that even Buddhi — the Intelligence — is also jada — inconscient.

We in our yoga need not accept it. While the Europeans liked Buddhism for its strong rationalism. Its logic led it up to Shunya — the state of non-being, which is its aim to reach. There is also a strong note of Agnosticism in it which appeals to the Europeans. It is something that hangs in the air; for the base is Shunya — non-being. You don’t know on what basis the whole thing stands.

There is a certain similarity between Science and Sankhya; for in science they believe that evolution begins with the jada, the inconscient and goes up the scale of consciousness.

Disciple: We have so much darkness in us that we can’t empty it by our own efforts. At times, it seems that even a little light will do.

Sri Aurobindo: No, a little light, a mere candle-like mental illumination, will not do. There must be full sun-light. And that is very difficult to attain and bring down. It is a slow process, but that is what we mean when we say: “You must have an opening.” If you have an opening, gradually, more and more light can come.

Sri Aurobindo: That is to say, something in you does not want it, otherwise there is hardly any difficulty. Of course, so far as the world is concerned it has always refused to accept the Light when it came.

It is a test to know whether the world is ready or not. For example, when Christ was sentenced Pilate had a right to pardon one of the four condemned, and he pardoned Barbaras. Nowadays, they say that Barbaras was not a robber, but was a national hero, and he was a sort of Robinhood. But whatever that may be, it is a fact that the romantic robber was preferred to the Son of God; or the political opponent to the preacher of the Truth.

Disciple: You say about experience, but I have no experience. All I feel is pressure at the time of meditation.

Sri Aurobindo: If you can wait you will know yourself, or you have to accept it from the Guru who has gone through the experience — that is to say, you have to accept it by Sravana, hearing, and Manana — meditating upon it.

Sri Aurobindo: You will yourself know it when it takes place; you can’t miss it.

Disciple: I hear that the American lady B remained in Ramanashram about a week, in spite of all unclean surroundings. She spent about a hundred rupees a day on her food. Mona says that her husband’s name does not indicate that he belongs to an old aristocratic family. He is a rubber magnate, he is a Lord, and is manufacturing rubber tyres.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t understand why a rubber manufacturer should be a Catholic.

Sri Aurobindo: She was much impressed and was full of praise for the Mother, and she thought it must be a work of genius. She thinks that genius can work without finances!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, 5?. Till now the Americans that have come here are either poor, or rich ones who don’t pay.

Disciple: She seems to have done better than Sir H. who not only did not pay anything but took a loaf of bread with him! (laughter).

Mother: She was full of compliments. She was much impressed with the tidiness, cleanliness., and the beauty in the Ashram. (Then addressing Sri Aurobindo she said) She is not much more than a tourist. She is going to Japan to study with Suzuki. She has much admiration for genius, probably because genius does not require finance.

Disciple: No news except that Mahatma Gandhi advises the Japanese visitor Kagawa to include Shanti Niketan and Pondicherry in his itinerary, without seeing which his visit to India would be incomplete.

At this juncture the Mother came and a meditation followed. After the Mother’s departure Sri Aurobindo

resumed:

Sri Aurobindo: I can give you some news today, The French Ministry seems to be going against the political party in power. It is a mystery how the ministry has suddenly taken this change of attitude.

Disciple: I understand that the leader from Pondicherry wrote to the Ministry against some official and the official must have found it out in France. And so, when he came back here he has taken up a definite attitude against the leader and the party.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a Greek saying that when one becomes too powerful he becomes insolent and commits excesses and then that strikes against the throne of God and then the retribution begins.

The leader of the former dominant party was not like that. He never lost sense of balance, and never pushed things too far. When his lieutenants asked him to arrest his political opponents he refused.

Disciple: Hitler also has a precipitous rise, he can’t maintain the momentum. He can’t last very long.

Sri Aurobindo: There is another famous Greek story about the tyrant of Syracuse. Do you know it?

Sri Aurobindo: This tyrant wanted to make friends with another tyrant of Sicily. Both belonged to Sicily. The latter replied: You are too fortunate. You must sacrifice something or have some little misfortune to compensate for your fortune, otherwise, I can’t ally myself with you. The tyrant of Syracuse — Polycrites — threw his most precious ring into the sea as a sacrifice to compensate for his fortune. The ring was swallowed by a fish and that fish caught by a fisherman who brought to him. He got back

the ring. The other tyrant heard about it and said: You are too lucky. I shall never ally myself with you. Polycrites was afterwards killed by his people in revolt. “The ring of Polycrites” is a proverbial expression in English.

The Roman poet says: the Titans fall by their own mass. There is a similar idea in India when it is said: the Asuras are too heavy for the earth to bear their weight. But some Asuras are clever enough to flourish in spite of proverbs.

Disciple: Can it be said that the Asuras by their action contradict the law of evolution or that they contradict something fundamental in human nature?

Sri Aurobindo: (kept silent for some time and then said) There is no such general law. The thing is that the Asura can’t keep balance. The law that demands balance then strikes.

Sri Aurobindo: Is your cosmic problem solved? [in reference to yesterday’s topic.]

Disciple: Not until I get the experience. But I have some interesting news from Calcutta. Mrs. M. has been saying to her relations such a number of lies that they have found it out and say: “There is truth on both sides.”

Disciple: She says that the Ashram tried to keep her child because of her property. We are short of money; police intervention has taken place before also.

Sri Aurobindo: But how can we get the money from the child? Everybody knows that the property belongs to her

mother, and that she is not going to die within a few years. It is not the Ashram that wanted to keep her; she — the child — wanted to stay of her own accord. And where was the police intervention? By saying that she deprives herself of the credit of having the first who brought in the police.

Disciple: A. B. is supposed to have said that Vivekananda by his idea of service to humanity, brought mixture and spoiled the spirituality that was intended to be cultivated by Ramakrishna.

Disciple: I don’t know. But was it Ramakrishna’s idea that Vivekananda followed? Was it Ramakrishna who asked him to do service to humanity?

Disciple: So far as I remember he said: “Lok hiter kaj karo.” “Lok hit” “Good of the world” — is not the same thing as “service to humanity.”

Disciple: So far as I remember Ramakrishna did not say anything like that. In fact, there was a great difference among Ramakrishna’s disciples about what Vivekananda was bringing in. But some of them submitted saying: “Vivekananda must know better.” The phrase “Daridra Narayana” was Vivekanand’s.

Disciple: But some disciples, even though they did not object, did not take any part in the work. Brahmananda was one such. He had a greater realization than Vivekananda.

Sri Aurobindo: I think so; he was spiritually higher. I once met Brahmanand when I went to see Belur Math. He asked me about some letters received from “G”. I don’t remember what it was about. He asked me whether he should do anything or keep quiet. I asked him to keep silent and not give any reply.

Disciple: Ramakrishna Mission seems to be more occupied with social and humanitarian work; I don’t know if there is much spirituality in it. My cousin Swami Adwaitananda went there and was quite dissatisfied and came back.

Sri Aurobindo: Famine relief is not all the year round. Medical relief is something.

Disciple: Education also. Now a days in many places of spiritual work they feed the poor — it is done as the Seva — Service to, Daridra Narayana — the poor as Narayana.

Sri Aurobindo: I see no idea in that. What is the use of feeding for one day, when they have to fast all the year round? You can satisfy your conscience that you have done something for the poor, I suppose. If you could find out the cause of poverty and try to remove that, that it would be some real work.

Disciple: But that is not easy. There are so many difficulties, political, economic etc.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think it is so insoluble as all that. If you give the people education — by education I mean proper education — not the modern type — and the means, then the problem could be solved. People in England or

France has not this kind of poverty as we have in India. That is because of their education — they are not so helpless.

Disciple: Some thousands were fed on the birthday of a holy man. There were so many people on this occasion that they were not allowed to touch him.

Sri Aurobindo: If they were allowed to touch him, he will feel like the President of America who had to shake hands with thousands of people and in the end got an aching of the hand.

Disciple: These are people who give lot of money for such purposes of temporary utility, but curiously enough, we don’t get financial help. One man actually told me, we don’t require money because we have buildings.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that seems to be the impression. Many people think like the American lady visitor, that “the Ashram is a work of genius” and genius can do without money (laughter). Among the rich it is only the minority that pays; mostly it is the poor persons like Miss X who hardly earns enough to maintain her family yet whenever she finds an opportunity she sends us money. There is a false rumour that we have a lot of money.

Disciple: It seems Barcelona — in Spain — is going. The French people are waking up at the eleventh hour.

Disciple: It seems, political ideas and ideals are not worth fighting for. Thousands fought for democracy and now

they are in a hurry to give it up. Nothing seems to be permanent in the political field.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. All human values are half values — they are relative. They have no permanence or durability about them.

Disciple: Perhaps, if man became more of a mentalized being, he would understand things better.

Sri Aurobindo: By being mentalized? No. The difficulty that men do not follow the principles of life.

Sri Aurobindo: Life compromises between different elements, but mind while acting alone does not compromise. Mind takes up one thing — (one idea, or principles or anything like that) — and makes it absolute. Mind considers it as apart from and opposed to all other things.

Hegel boasted that in Europe they had succeeded in separating reason from life and you see their philosophy — it has nothing to do with life; it is all mental gymnastics, it does not form part of life.

In the political philosophy of Europe you find, if they accept democracy, it is only democracy — all the rest is opposed to it. If monarchy, then it is only monarchy. That is what happened in Greece. They fought for democracy and opposed aristocracy and monarchy and in the end oligarchy came and monarchy — at last they were conquered by the Romans.

Disciple: Then what is the truth in all these attempts at political organization?

Sri Aurobindo: If you want to arrive at something true and lasting, you have to look at life and learn from it. That is to say, you must learn the nature of the opposition and contradictions and then reconcile them.

As regards government, life shows that there is a truth in monarchy — whether hereditary or elective. That is to say, there is a man at the top who governs. Life also shows that there is a truth in aristocracy, whether it is of strong or rich men — that of money or intellect.

The current fiction is, it is the majority that rules. Life also shows that the rule of the kind or of the aristocracy should be with the consent — silent or vocal — of the people who form the mass.

In ancient India, they recognized the truth of these things. That is why India has lasted through millenniums and China also. English politics is successful because they have always found one man or two who had the power to lead the minority of the ruling class. During Victorian period it was either Gladstone or Disraeli, and even when the party in power changes in England the other party that comes to power does not change things radically. They continue the same policy with a slight modification.

In France no government lasts, sometimes it changes within a few days! The new government is a repetition of the one it replaces. Blum is one who wanted to do something radical but he was knocked out.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He seems to have a queer logic; because the Right has a majority so, the president should be from the minority. And what is the sense in saying: we will fight to the core? I can understand that kind of idea if you are going to have revolution. Then there can be no

compromise. But once you have accepted compromise there is no meaning in that statement. One has to work out on the basis of what one has gained. Satyamurty’s idea of federation seems all right to me if the States’ people are given some representation in the centre and the Viceroy exercises no veto. It would then practically amount to rule.

Disciple: The Viceroy’s long stay in Bombay seems significant. I think, there is something behind it. He may want to settle the office — bearers for the federation.

Sri Aurobindo: The Bombay Ministry seems to be working efficiently. They have escaped the socialists trap. These socialists do not know what is socialism.

Disciple: There were many humourous speeches in the Sindh — assembly. The League has been exposed.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the Sindh Premier — I always forget his name — seems to be a strong man and stands up for his ideas at the risk of unpopularity. The Sindh Muslims were anxious to join the Congress. The Congress should try to do something to make a coalition there.

The Congress ministries are successful almost everywhere. That is an indication of the power to govern if powers are given.

Sri Aurobindo: The Muslim League is not so strong in Bengal — there is the Praja party there. In the Punjab Sikandar Hayat Khan seems to be an able man. Only, in U. P. the Muslim League seems strong.

Disciple: I wonder how Fazlul Haque could become the Premier. Perhaps Nazimuddin may be more capable.

Sri Aurobindo: He won’t make a popular figure. Haque can turn as circumstances require. All these Muslims of the League seem to be a lot of self-seekers.

Disciple: I do not understand why the Congress opened negotiations with the League. It has been giving an undue importance.

Disciple: Because of the Socialists and the old Congress people fighting each other. The Jayapur affair is starting again. Bajaj is going to offer Satyagraha. It seems, Mahatma has given his approval.

Sri Aurobindo: Since he is a congressman I suppose the Congress will have to back him. If the State people get power the princes will have no work but to sign papers and shoot animals.

Sri Aurobindo: The forests have to be preserved and also the wild life. China destroyed all her forests and the result is there is flood every year.

Sri Aurobindo: Germany was like that at one time. Napoleon swept away half of the number and the last war swept off another half. Japan also had many princes but they voluntarily abdicated their power. The Japanese are not greedy for money. They can easily sacrifice if they find it is their duty to sacrifice — of course, duty to the country.

Sri Aurobindo: The Mikado claims to be the descendant of the Goddess of the Sun. The Mikado Maigi believed in it and he used to do what was necessary after feeling the inspiration within him.

There are two types of features among the Japanese: one tall and with a long nose and fine aristocratic face, and another the “Inune” who came from Australia and Polynesia. It was the tall people with classical features that gave Samurai Culture to Japan. I met a Japanese painter at Tagore’s place — he was of the first type — what magnificent features! The other is the usual Mongolian type.

Disciple: The dictator’s psychology is an authority complex. People under the dictator feel they are great and that the dictator — in this case Hitler — is fighting for them, not they who fight for him. Perhaps the dictators find a competitor in God and religion. So they try to crush religion.

Sri Aurobindo: But Mussolini did not crush religion in Italy, though Kemal and Stalin did. Mussolini on the contrary has given more power to the Pope in the Vatican. He has practically recognized the Roman Church as the State religion.

Disciple: I read in a newspaper that Kemal in his intoxicated condition slapped an Egyptian because he came to a dinner party with a fez on.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, a young journalist of Turkey criticized the government saying; Turkey is governed by a number

of drunkards. Kemal came to know of it. Next day, the journalist received an invitation to dinner. He was trembling as to what was coming. After dinner was over Kemal told him: Young man, you are quite mistaken in saying that Turkey is governed by a number of drunkards. It is not true. Turkey is governed by one drunkard.

Disciple: Stalin forced the collectivization of farming among the Ukrainians. The farmers did not like it. So, to spite the government they collected from the farmers only what they required for themselves for the year; they did not collect the crop for the government. Stalin came to know about it. In the meantime the crop standing in the fields was destroyed by cold and frost. He sent down his officials and they attached the corn collected by the farmers as state dues. The result was famine. The farmers starved and died by the thousands. Stalin did no help; he allowed them to die. He was afraid that once he submitted to them there would be no collectivization anywhere.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what happens when socialism comes. Communism is different. If they had been successful in carrying out the original idea of the Soviets then it would have been a great success. Mussolini at first tried to form corporate state but he also gave it up later on.

Disciple: The Socialists did not succeed in breaking the trade-unions in Ahmedabad, which are under the Congress.

Sri Aurobindo: Socialism has no chance with the Indian peasant. He will side with you so long as you promise him land and want to end the land-lord system. But once

he has got the land no more socialism for him. In socialism you have the state which intervenes at every step with its officials who rob money.

Disciple: The officials know the Government machinery and they so manage to keep the power in their hands.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is the State bureaucracy that dictates the policy irrespective of the good of the commune. In communism they hold the land for the whole community i.e. — the whole unit and each part of it is entitled to labour and have its share from the produce.

Disciple: In India we have a kind of communism in the villages. The whole village was like a big family and the lowest had his right as a member of the family. The washerman, the carpenter the black smith, the barber, all get what they needed.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the only communism that is practicable. Each such commune can be independent and many such units can be scattered all over country and they can combine or co-ordinate their activities for a common purpose.

The Mother left for the general meditation and the disciples were ready to begin some topic, but Sri Aurobindo seemed mentally occupied with something. He was rather thoughtful and in a mood of silence. So none ventured to begin. After a few minutes Sri Aurobindo looked at the company present and there was spontaneous smile on every face.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a cure for your cold in the “Sunday times”: you have to get into an aeroplane, take some rounds, get down and you are cured.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if the plane comes down with a crash, the cure would be permanent. (laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. They also insert a long piece of cloth into their intestines and bring it out through the anus in order to clean the track.

There also have been authentic cases of taking poisons like the nitric acid, Hydro cyanic acid etc., without any evil effect. There are cases of swallowing nails, glass etc.

Disciple: I wonder how the scientists would explain these phenomena. Somewhere they were invited to a demonstration but they refused to attend.

Disciple: These Hatha yogis who demonstrate these phenomena,

must know some process of preventing absorption of these things in the stomach.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they must have the power to stop the action of the poisons and then eliminate it. They throw it out — by vomiting the substance immediately after the demonstration.

Disciple: Perhaps, you know that the Royal Society of Science refused permission to Sir William Crooks who wanted to demonstrate the reality of mediumistic phenomena.

Sri Aurobindo: The same thing happened in Germany. In the village Alberfeltz there was a man who used to train horses to do mathematical sums — (of course, they were simple operations). He invited the scientists; they refused to believe in it. Not only they refused but they complained to the Government that it should be stopped, because the trainer was following unorthodox method of investigation!

Disciple: Maurice Materlinck himself went to see it and said, after seeing it, that he himself did not believe in it before he saw it. He examined the animals by giving his own figures and the answers given by the horses were correct. (Ref. to his book — “L’hote inconna”

Sri Aurobindo: They say that animals can’t think or reason. It is not altogether true. They have an intelligence which acts within narrow limits of the needs of their life. These faculties are latent in the animals and have not been developed, that’s all.

The cats have a language of their own; they utter different kinds of mews for different purposes. For instance, when the Mother leaves her kittens behind a box, mewing a particular rhythm, then the kittens understand that they are not to move from that place till she comes back and repeats the mew. It is through rhythm that they express

themselves and they understand human language if it is every time in a particular rhythm.

Even the donkey who is supposed to be very stupid is unusually clever. Horses and donkeys were confined together within an enclosure and the gate was closed to find out if they could get out. It was found that while horses were helpless, it was the donkeys that by turning the latch opened the gate.

Why go further, even in our Ashram the Mother’s cat Chikou was unusually clever. One day she was confined in a room and it was discovered that she was trying to open the window in exactly the same way as the Mother used to do. Evidently she had watched the Mother doing it before going to the window and taking up the string.

We had, when we were staying in Rue suffrin, a bitch left by someone in the house had a room upstairs with glass window and a bath-room at one extremity. One day this bitch found herself locked out. She tried all sorts of devices to enter the room but could not as the main door and the windows were all closed. As all attempts failed, she sat down in front of the window and began to think; how to get in? The way she sat and the attitude of her sitting showed clearly that she was thinking. Then suddenly she got up as if saying: Ah, there is the bath-room door! Let me try it. She went in that direction. The door there was open and she got in.

It is the Europeans who make a big difference between man and animals. The only difference is the animals can’t form a concept, can’t read or write or philosophize (laughter).

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know that. While Mother and

myself were meditating a cat used to be present. We found that she was getting queer and was getting into trance and was almost on the point of death, but recovered. Evidently, she was trying to receive something.

Disciple: Maharshi’s cow, Laxmi, is said to bow down to him. She is even supposed to have been some old disciple of his in her previous life and was attached to Maharshi.

Sri Aurobindo: Have you read Hitler’s interview with Col. Beck in the “Sunday Times”?

Sri Aurobindo: It was shouting at each other. It is said that when Hitler begins to shout his eyes become glassy and it means disaster. But in this interview when he began to shout and eyes turned glassy, Beck began to shout louder. Hitler was much surprised to find this unexpected return and himself toned down.

Sri Aurobindo: Relations with Poland were not much improved I suppose. (The topic changed) Sri Aurobindo turned to X: Did you see Subhas Boses’ statement?

Disciple: Yes, it seems unfortunate that at this time the Congress should be divided.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. Whenever he has been in authority there has been trouble. Congress-split in Bengal came in his time. He is an intellectual without grasp of the

realities. He talks of India exerting international influence! You are not even a nation and you talk of being international! You have to be first independent. Even in a small affair like the China-Japanese war, what you have been able to do is to send an ambulance unit.

Disciple: Our Y who was in Bengal politics has not a very high opinion about Subhas Bose. He says, he is a good lieutenant but can’t be a great leader.

Disciple: It seems as if what he is doing is more for satisfying his ambition for power and egoism.

Disciple: And all the talk about influencing the votes is meaningless. They are all trying to influence the voters on their side.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. He says, he stands for principles, but all the time he is asking “vote for me”.

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by sincerity? Sincere means ready to suffer for the cause and honest means, he accepts no bribe or money. Is it not? But even during our Swadeshi movement though the leaders were egoistic and quarrelsome they were honest and sincere. Our fight was over principles e. g. Reform or revolution or as somebody put it, Colonial self government or Independence. We never fought on personal grounds as you now find between Bose and Sen Gupta or Khare and Shukla. You know what Das said about criminals? He said: “In my whole legal career I have not met such worst types of criminals as in politics.” Evidently he knew about his own followers.

Disciple: But if Bose sincerely believes that the Congress is going to compromise with the British Government on federation, is not he justified in fighting the federation in the congress? He says that some suspicious negotiations seem to be going on behind the scenes.

Sri Aurobindo: But what is there objectionable in negotiations? Every country and every big party has to do it. The Germans before and during the war were doing it. Negotiation does not mean acceptance. There is no harm in seeing how far the other party will go in granting concessions, rights and privileges.

Disciple: When Nehru visited Nahas Pasha in Egypt, Nahas said that their Wafd party had become demoralized after accepting office and now they are defeated. He wondered how the congress ministers have remained pure after accepting office. Nehru explained to him about the Parliamentary Board which acts as a check on the ministers. The Board has no administrative powers and ministers are not members of the Board.

Sri Aurobindo: I was surprised to hear about the dissolution of the Wafd party and wondered what it might have been due to. But then they ought to have turned out the king as Kemal did in Turkey. The present king is following the policy of his father. So, instead of quarrelling among themselves they should have — now that they have power — tried to build up their nation first, by giving people education and training. Secondly, they should make efforts to increase the wealth and lastly, they must build up military power. The same thing should be done in India by the Congress ministry.

Sri Aurobindo: Technical, agricultural and other. How will they develop industries without properly educated and trained people? India is such a vast country that if she can

produce her own necessary things, she can consume them herself. External trade is not necessary at the beginning. That is what U. S. A. did. She developed first her internal trade to meet all the necessities of her own people; and when by that means she had increased her wealth she began to develop external trade. The government should have a plan for the economic survey of the provinces to see what could and should be taken up in each province.

Disciple: That is one good thing Bose had done; he has organized an economic planning committee.

Sri Aurobindo: But they must not neglect secondary education. You can’t have efficient people without education. It creates common interest and a basis of common understanding. I don’t mean the present form of education. It has to be radically changed. The Indian boys are more intelligent then English boys of the same age and status but three — fourths of their talent and energy are wasted, while the English boys use their talent ten times better than the Indian because of the training and equipment.

Disciple: The Bombay Premier has approached the merchants for donation to the Government, as there is going to be substantial loss due to prohibition. The government will have to levy new taxes if they don’t get money.

Sri Aurobindo: It is better not to destroy the capitalist class as the socialists want to. They are the source of national wealth. They should be encouraged to spend for the nation. Taxing is all right, but you must increase production, and raise new industries, also raise the standard of living; without that if you increase the taxes there will be a state of depression. Other nations tax enormously because they produce also on a large scale.

Disciple: The congress ministers are opening agricultural schools training centres for small industries.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a pity to give up all that work for merely fighting the Federation. You can fight it even after it is established. One has to accept what one gets and on that basis work out the rest. If the British Government finds that the federation is perfectly worked out it may not object to give more. They expect a crowd of demagogues shouting together in Assembly, not people capable of governing. But if socialism comes that might frighten them.

Disciple: The present governor of Bombay seems to be sympathetic to his cabinet.

Sri Aurobindo: The English people have constitutional temperament, except of course, a few autocrats like Curzon. They will be violently opposed to their being kicked out, but they don’t object to their being gently shouldered out as in the dominions. The dominions are practically independent. The British people will be quite content if they get India’s help in case of an international war. But these declarations of anti-imperialist policy and “no compromise” might tend to stiffen their attitude,What is the use of declaring your policy in advance? Even as regards the states one must not be too exacting in one’s demands. They won’t tolerate the idea of reducing them to mere figure — heads from the very beginning.

Sri Aurobindo: He did not seem to me to be a very likable person. But if one has sincerity and capacity that is enough in politics.

A letter from a lady disciple was read to Sri Aurobindo in which she related some of her experiences. She is losing consciousness, finds the mind floating about as it were, lightning strokes in the head and a feeling of some presence. But these experiences give her very great fear and she complains of bad health.

Sri Aurobindo: You can tell her that what she calls losing of consciousness is its movement inwards. It is rather unusual to get these experiences. Usually, one takes months and months to make the mind quiet and she did it at the first sitting. The lightning strokes is the action of the Higher Power, or Yoga Shakti to make the Adhar fit for Yoga. All these things show that she has a capacity for the Yoga. But she must get rid of fear. Otherwise, all the experiences will stop. The letter shows that her inner mind is ready but her vital and the physical are not —

the vital is full of fear and the body suffers from bad health. As she herself says, it produces a conflict in the being which is not desirable. It may be better for her not to take up Yoga seriously, until she is restored to health. But the most important thing is to get rid of fear.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the difficulty. Many complain of when one takes up the Yoga all sorts of experiences come in, which are out of the run of ordinary consciousness; and if one fears, Yoga is not possible. It has to be got rid of by the mind, i. e. by the psychological training and will-power. Any human being, worth the name has a will and that will has to be exercised or developed. She can ask for the protection of the Divine, lay herself in the hands of the Divine and say there is no fear. This is done by the mind. As Vivekananda very insistently said, the Yogi must be “Abhihi” — without fear.

I don’t know whether I told you about my experience. After my meeting with Lele I was meditating at Calcutta. I felt a tremendous calm and then felt as if my breath would stop. A silly fear, or rather an apprehension, caught hold of me and I said: If my breath stops how shall I live? At once the experience stopped and never came back.

There are all sorts of experiences. What will you do if you feel your head being drilled through, or a nail being thrust inside? These things, of course, are not physical.

Sri Aurobindo: The experience comes quietly but you make a row! If your head or physical body is being split then you could object to it. You ought to know by now that

all these experiences are in the subtle body.

Disciple: I had also once or twice such fear of presence as the lady speaks of. I sat to meditate before going to bed and I felt everything still and then as if there was some presence. That frightened me.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? You thought it was the devil that brought the stillness? But the devil, generally does not bring stillness; usually he makes a row. Two things are necessary in Yoga: to get rid of fear and to know the ordinary symbols. (turning to X) You know V once in meditation saw that some golden beings came down and told him: “Now we will cut your body and make it new.” He cried out: Never, never. He thought that his physical body was going to be cut. But the symbolism is quite clear: the old elements in the nature would be thrown away and new ones brought in.

Disciple: I heard afterwards that he turned to Jainism. I don’t know if it is true.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, that often happens. In one’s vital and physical nature there remains a stamp of one’s ancestral religion and it comes out at some time. The Christians usually turn towards Catholicism. A Frenchman — I forgot his name — tried all sorts of things, mysticism, Tibetan Occultism etc. When he was informed by one of our disciples that these things won’t go with Yoga, he abandoned all connection and turned to Catholicism.

My grand father started by being a Brahmo and ended by writing a book on Hinduism and proclaiming it as thebest religion in the world.

After a pause: the topic changed. Sri Aurobindo turned to “X” and said: “So Subhas has met Nehru.”

Disciple: Yes, Nehru may act as a mediator and Tagore may be the peace-maker between the two parties.

Sri Aurobindo: Subhas speaks of direct action after six months. But what sort of direct action? It seems, Gandhi will leave him to form his own working committee; it will be a great blunder if Gandhi did that. And with Gandhi left out, what direct action can take place? is it that subhas and his followers will take off their coats and fight? or reject seats in the Assembly? Salt Satyagraha is out of question. There remains breaking laws. But the Government will bring in the moderates and rule by them and even run the Federation so long as you don’t send better men. No-tax campaign? But that is a tremendous affair. Gandhi himself says, the country is not ready for it. I don’t think Subhas has so much influence or capacity to make it successful, or an all India movement. Neither does he himself believe in non-violence. His own followers don’t seem to know their own mind.

Disciple: Tagore wants Subhas to compromise with Gandhi, for he knows that Gandhiji is an international figure.

Sri Aurobindo: Not only that, his word counts; he has not lost the force yet. I think, if he made a public statement that he wanted Pattabhi to be elected, he would have him elected. But there are still six months to inaugurate the Federation; what is Subhas going to do in the meantime? Gandhi knew that Subhas will take up this attitude and hence he did not want him. Now with his followers left out of the working committee, the leftists will probably pass laws, abolishing zamindars and capitalists and spoil the work done by the Ministers. They would try to

introduce social legislation and that would make the Governors use their powers, or, if they keep out of the Assembly, it would be foolish to throw away the powers given. Before I left politics, I wrote: If you get real power, take it and fight for more like De Valera, who took what was given and grabbed at more. In the present international situation when the Government wants to come to a compromise with the Congress you should accept it, if what they give is acceptable and fight for more.

Disciple: That seems to be Subhas’s idea, but he says: Now is the time to press for independence.

Sri Aurobindo: That would be all right if the country was prepared for revolution, so that even if Bose and a few others were hanged the movement could have gone on and ultimately the Government would have yielded as in Ireland. There, in Ireland, the lives of the people who went against the national movement were not safe. Otherwise, one has to proceed with subtler ways. But what Bose claims now is impossible to get. On the other hand, it will set the Government against you and they will try to crush the movement.

Disciple: But if they work this provincial programme and prepare the country at the same time, and press the States to give rights to the people then, we might get what we want without revolution.

Sri Aurobindo: Exactly. It is a clever drive to bring in the States and if they can carry it through, the Federation will have the Princes and the Congress on one side and only the minority of the Muslims will remain out. Subhas has not done a wise thing.

Sri Aurobindo: Only the leftists are doing that. No right

wing man has said anything except S. C. Das (after a long pause of silence):

The British people have one weakness; they can’t drive things to the extreme. They can’t go on like the Germans and some other nations with methods of suppression for a long time. They have their prestige to keep before the world and they want people’s support. They want to govern with a show of consent or law or constitution. So, they come in the end with a compromise. France comes to a compromise, but takes a much longer time. But Germany or Italy can’t hesitate to go to the extreme limit. For instance, in Palestine, the British Government have almost succeeded in crushing the terrorists. If they had persisted they could have easily put Nahashiby against the Mufti and rule the Arabs by the Arabs. But they could not go on and now they have called the Palestine Conference. If the Mufti is clever he will be able to get as much as possible, but not the whole of it.

Sri Aurobindo: They can leave them to their fate, or they can be sacrificed for their self-interests or they may do something just to save their face. In Ireland, they came to a compromise, even the Conservatives turned round.

In Tunisia, the French have put the Dasturians into prison, but if they can keep us, France will give in.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if he is capable of thinking. His inner voice may ask him to push on. Mussolini may think twice unless he too is Hitlerised. In that case Hitler will

say: I have given you a chance for Colonies. If you don’t take it up I will go to Ukraine. Mussolini may not like that. During Czech-crisis, it was mere bluff that he succeeded. He knew from private sources that England and France won’t fight.

Disciple: Roosevelt has promised France armaments and U. S. A is selling aeroplanes and other materials. He may come to their help if they are attacked.

Sri Aurobindo: But it is doubtful if he can carry the nation with him. The armaments are increased for the defense. But if they are exported people may think it will involve them in a war. At any rate, his speech has come as a great blow to both Italy and Germany. Chamberlain also may think of supporting France now. A remarkable man, this Roosevelt, he is bold and ready to experiment and take risks. It is the old Roosevelt blood, only the first Roosevelt was Fascist. This one is very refined.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if the British and the French people go on yielding to the demands of the dictators. The British may say to Germany: we will supply you raw materials, you can come and settle here.

Disciple: (to another disciple) You have seen Hidayatullah has become a Minister of Sindh?

Disciple: Has he? Allah Bux has won him over, it means. He earned a lot of money from the Sukkur Barrage Scheme during his ministry in Bombay, before the congress government.

Disciple: He used to sell plots of land to customers through

his agents and he kept some of the best lands for himself. There were similar charges against some ministers in the Central Provinces.

Disciple: Though people bitterly criticize the High Command, it has done a good job.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is the High Command and Gandhi’s dictatorship that has kept the country together. That sort of weakness is very common in America and even in France. But you may not find such corruption in England. The public life there is honest and sincere. They may tell lies and may break their promises, but bribery or appropriation of money hardly exists in their public, or political administration. As they say, “they are not done.” If a political leader does that sort of thing he is finished for life. Thomas is wiped out — nobody hears of him now. The judges make no distinction between rich criminal and a poor one — as they do in America and France and I suppose India is no better.

Disciple: In the Life of Nivedita which Lizelle is writing, she has found many letters, in one of which she mentions that you gave her charge of editing, Vande Mataram, after you left Calcutta.

Sri Aurobindo: No. I was the Karma Yogin — not Vande Mataram, I saw her before I left Calcutta for Chandernagore. It was from her that I got the news of my contemplated arrest. Then I wrote an article “My Political Will” — that stopped the arrest.

Disciple: It seems, she traveled to India once under assumed name to evade arrest in 1910 or 1911.

Sri Aurobindo: We were talking about the Tapasya yesterday. Is it not to transcend nature and conquer that they do those violent Tapasyas and not from an idea of illusion?

Sri Aurobindo: Then their aim is the same as ours, only the method is different.

Sri Aurobindo: No, the idea may have been in his blood or perhaps atmosphere of the Indian place. When I was reading Max Mullars’ translation of the Vedanta in London I came upon the idea of “Self” and I decided that Vedanta is something to be realized in life. Before that I was an atheist and agnostic. How do you explain that? You can’t say that it was the atmosphere of the place. It was in the blood or perhaps carried from past life. Then there was the experience when I came to India: as soon as I set my foot on Apollo Bunder, I felt a vastness and a tremendous calm coming over me. I did not know, of course, that it was an experience. It was a sense of calm and vastness pervading everywhere and I had not got it in the steamer. That is the atmosphere of the place.

Another instance is the sense of the Infinite I had at the Shankeracharya Hill at Kashmir and at Parvati Hill near Poona, and the reality of the image in a temple at Karnali near Chandod.

Disciple: I asked X why the Jews are so much persecuted in Germany. He said that they were a rich minority and so they were made the scapegoat. He said, the same thing

happened in France against the aristocracy during the revolution, and in Spain against the clergy.

Sri Aurobindo: Regarding France, the revolution was not particularly against the aristocracy; it was against all history of the past. And in Spain, it was against the past repression of the Church.

Disciple: I asked Mrs. X about conditions in Switzerland. She says, the country is passing through a critical time. She is afraid of a passage through her territory during war. During the last world war also they passed some anxious days. They were relieved when Belgium was made the route. The dictators may decide to take route through Switzerland. If they attack the Italian and German speaking Canton then the French speaking Cantons would be in difficulty.

Sri Aurobindo: It is said that Czechoslovakian frontier was so strongly fortified that Germany would have found it difficult to take it.

Disciple: It is a pity they gave in without fight. But now Hitler is asking equivalent colonies.

Sri Aurobindo: Holland has no Colonies in Africa. Portuguese Colonies in Africa are small and Hitler would hardly be satisfied with them. Belgian Congo is big, but England would not dare to do anything with it, for that will make Belgium furious and she may side with Germany. England could not allow that, for if Germany takes possession of Antwerp, it will be a pistol at the heart of England.

“Roosevelt seems to have backed out.” Now he says:

America has nothing to do with European problems.

Sri Aurobindo: “The Hindu” has given a fitting reply; either he meant something or meant nothing by his declaration.

Disciple: The Socialists in a recent meeting at Bombay began to shout and continued shouting. Shouting is quite constitutional with them (laughter).

Disciple: Bose has called his leftist Conference. I wonder what programme they are going to formulate.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what they are not going to say. The only thing they are to do is to give an ultimatum to the British Government. After that they will break some laws or ask the Ministers to resign on the States’ issue, if they have not done so by that time.

Disciple: The States’ question will be an all-absorbing matter and the split in the Congress may be avoided.

Sri Aurobindo: But it is not definite what the princes will do. They are under the thumb of the British Government. Only a man like Holkar and Nabha may side with the Congress and risk losing his Gadi — throne.

This year there is this threatened split in the Congress between Subhas and his Socialists and Gandhi’s followers. Socialism in England is of a watery kind.

Sri Aurobindo: That is because Stalin has killed all unpleasant

to him. He can now wait till some other people come up in future whom he can kill.

Sri Aurobindo: When Barcelona has fallen Mioja cannot do anything. Besides, what can he do without arms and food.

Sri Aurobindo: Gayda is the mouth piece of Mussolini. When he does not want to say anything himself he speaks through Gayda. But Daladier could make a Spanish legion out of the Spanish refugees as a counterblast to Mussolini’s Italian legionary in Spain and use it in case the French troops are not allowed to come from Morocco. But it is too bold a policy for Daladier.

Sri Aurobindo: That, of course; when somebody comes to take hold of family possession, the family will unanimously refuse.

Disciple: The French Chamber voted unanimously against Italian demand of Colonies.

Sri Aurobindo: He will be lynched if he talks of parting with Tunis, Corsica etc. It is a question of parting with some

deserts in Africa. French people may agree, as they wanted to, during the Abyssianian war, but Mussolini would say: “I am not a Collector of deserts”

Sri Aurobindo: Bonnet is not reliable. Daladier has, at least some force. On one occasion he refused to listen to Bonnet and said, he would not tolerate any interference of England in connection with the Italian question. The French people don’t know that they have to stand up to the British and speak to them bluntly. During Czech-crisis when Chamberlain told them that he would help them diplomatically so far as possible, but they should not count on his military support, they should have replied that if England was attacked by the Germans they should not count on them as allies. Then Chamberlain would have come down.

Dr. R. stayed up to 9:30 P. M. As soon as he left the topic of the local politics was brought in:

Disciple: The Governor has invited the three parties to see if a compromise can be arrived at. What he says is that they may have their own political views of whatever colour but they must not go on killing each other.

Sri Aurobindo: He will be one of the greatest diplomats in the world if he can reconcile their interests and have a common programme.

Disciple: Subhas and his Conference do not seem to have settled on any programme. Today’s paper says that Gandhiji has wired to Subhas not to stand for the presidentship. But he does not seem to have paid any heed to it. It may be that many delegates may vote against him.

Sri Aurobindo: The only thing he speaks of is challenging the British Government and attacking the States — rather a tall order.

Disciple: Yes, Gandhiji also challenged the Government. The result was the Round Table Conference. In the end, Willingdon arrested Gandhiji and refused even to see him.

Sri Aurobindo: Willingdon now will look with queer eyes at the Congress ministries and think that all he had done has been undone.

Disciple: The working Committee (of the Congress) has decided to give Subhas the Committee of his choice. But the people he has called at Calcutta for a conference don’t seem to be promising.

Sri Aurobindo: Who are these people? They seem to be an army of nobodies. Except Aiyangar, Aney and one or two others these people were never heard of before.

Disciple: The other States seem to be supporting Rajkot and asking him not to yield.

Disciple: If the states organize, backed by the Paramount Power — the British — and lend their support then Rajkot may stand through and the Satyagraha may not succeed. Look at Mysore and Travancore — Mysore has only appointed

Committee which may go on for three years and so do nothing.

Moreover it is very difficult to keep the movement non-violent. If it is kept to the middle class it may be possible, but if the masses come in then violence is inevitable. You see the murder of the Bazulgate in Orissa and breaking out of violence in Travancore. Human nature is human — if the movement is confined to a small state like Rajkot it may succeed, but in the big states it is impossible to keep it non-violent.

Disciple: In Travancore it is Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyar who engineered the outbreak.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t believe it. In many cases I have seen that Congress people are not noted for their truthfulness. They say what suits them. But if they propose to come out of the Assembly because of failure in Rajkot or Jaipur, it is not at all good. These small states must be deprived of their power and be made like Jamindars. One never knew that there were so many states.

Bajaj was a little hurt while being forcibly removed. Gandhiji called it “organized goondaism.”

Sri Aurobindo: I do not understand why Gandhi calls it “Goondaism”. If Bajaj resisted they will have to use force to remove him and injury is quite possible.

Disciple: Pratap Singh may be persuaded by Krishnamachari to part with some of his privileges.

Sri Aurobindo: I saw his photograph today. He has a weak face, nothing of the grand father in him. His father had more brilliance and dash. Pratap Singh has a soul — but not a strong one.

Jaysingh Rao was dull. Shivaji Rao was intelligent. I taught him French; he was a good student. Dhairyashil showed signs of premature development of lust. All that was due to the servants of the palace.

Indira was more interesting and there was something sturdy in her. She had the most of her father — Sayaji Rao — in her.

Disciple: There is a criticism of Pujalal’s poetry by a poet critic. He says, it is not “rooted in the soil”, too Sanskritised and not written for the masses. English poetry, he says, is founded on the Anglo Saxon language.

Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. The great Shakespeare and poets from Milton to Shelley did not write, consciously in the Anglo Saxon language — except William Morris, who used Anglo Saxon words. They have followed Latin and Greek vocabulary. And the idea of writing for the mass is a stupid idea. Poetry was never written for the mass. It is only a minority that read and appreciated poetry. The definition of modern poetry is what the poet himself and a few of his admirers around him understand. Shakespeare and Milton are not mass poets.

Martin Tupper and Mrs. Hymans wrote for the mass — “He stood on the burning deck, when all but he had fled” — That sort of thing. Tupper sold more in his life than all the best poets put together. It is curious, many of the modern poets are communists, but they don’t write for the mass.

Disciple: In the political problem of India the States present a great obstacle — particularly to the political unity of the country.

Disciple: There is a great rush for public career now a days — in fact there is a competition for it. But there are the low tendencies also visible. How to combat this tendency?

Sri Aurobindo: By creating a tradition of respect for character, by throwing out dishonest men from public life. Politicians can lie but not be corrupt.

Parliamentary form of democracy is not necessarily suited to India. As it is, anybody stands as a candidate for election and either buys off votes or persuades them into giving it, or comes up by some trick. But he may not be the true representative. Besides, anybody who comes with majority should not be made a minister; only capable man should be given ministership — the policy may be reserved for the parliament.

Kingship like that of Aundh is best suited to India, where the king is religious minded person, a man of character and intelligence. He looks to the interest of all his subjects. But for that, the Kings must be taught and prepared with hard training. Now, they learn only how to play cricket and drink. But in ancient times, a King’s training was very hard.

Sri Aurobindo: The mental factor is much more effective than is generally known or admitted. There are cases where the surgeons have found that the mental factor has saved the patient by pulling him or her out from a critical condition. For example, Mothers wanting to see their children are saved, being pulled out of critical conditions.

Disciple: Which method of treatment is correct — the Chinese method of pricking or opathy, Ayurvedic or allopathy etc.?

Sri Aurobindo: Nature allows you to follow along certain lines and along each she shows you what is possible. For example, they thought of electricity as wave motion and they found there was some thing that corresponded to that view. Now they think of it as made up of particles, you ind that it responds to that also.

Disciple: That is the realm of matter, but in life — for example, in the curing of a disease.

Sri Aurobindo: Mental factors determine the physical conditions much more than doctors would be prepared to grant. Cone’s method succeeds and it cannot be considered useless, though it uses no medicine.

Disciple: Some disciples here believe that there is a collective Karma for which either the group, the society or the nation has to bear the consequences like the individual.

Sri Aurobindo: The collective being is non-evolutionary. It is hard to believe in the reincarnation of races.

Sri Aurobindo: Very queer Romans! You may say in some sense that the English are the ancient Carthaginians! Or one may even hazard that the French are the Greeks reborn. But it won’t carry us very far.

You can’t take for granted that one individual is always born in the same race or nation in which he is born now. So how can the nation soul or race soul reincarnate?

Sri Aurobindo: You can speak of it as collective or nations being or entity. It is not in evolution. It is not subject to the law of Karma.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, each collective being is a projection of the Cosmic Spirit for a particular purpose. You can speak of it as a particular Shakti.

Sri Aurobindo: It identifies itself with a particular form — here of a group of individual. There is a mutual action: it acts on the individual and the individual acts on it by manifesting it.

Sri Aurobindo: When the physical form of the collectivity is dissolved here the collective being withdraws into the origin.

Disciple: Can a collective being, after such a dissolution take another form — a group — for manifesting itself?

Disciple: There is a report about the student of the Annamalai University picketing and some of them are fasting.

Sri Aurobindo: Satyagraha is something to be applied in extreme case, but Gandhi has almost made a law of it and so there are so many wrong applications of it.

Disciple: Here in this case the fundamental relations are contradicted e.g. the relation between teachers and students. It is not, for instance, the same as between workers and capitalists.

Sri Aurobindo: Even among workers, it makes a great difference if they are educated. For instance, in Europe, when they resort to stay in strike, the workers do not injure the machinery and they even work the important parts to keep it in order. While in India, where the labour is uneducated, you can’t have it like that. They destroy the machinery and then are thrown out of employment. In the Savanne Mills they burnt the machinery and then were thrown out of employment. Similar was the case in Madras Match Factory.

If you do not have bill like the one Bombay Trade Disputes Bill, the industries will go to the pot.

Disciple: Did you notice Jawaharlal’s article in the Hindu? He can’t forget Subhas not acknowledging his report from Europe and also his international politics.

Sri Aurobindo: That again shows Nehru is an idealist. If he has the clarity of mind to see — as he has — that socialism can come in India only after independence, it should be equally clear to him that India can do something in international politics only after she is free.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a hazy idea. All you have been able to do for China is to send an ambulance unit. It is not like England that can send money to stabilize the currency in China.

Disciple: I believe, it is his visit to Europe in the League against Imperialism that gives him the impression that he would be able to do something in international politics.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a wrong impression. It was, for instance, wrongly supposed that the Governor of Pondicherry was recalled because Nehru represented the case to the Secretary of Colonies.

Sri Aurobindo: He might have been only polite; they are always polite. But that does not mean anything. He might say: “I will look into the matter” or “thank you for bringing the matter to my notice.”

Sri Aurobindo: Gandhi’s is a big triumph; if some understanding is arrived at between the princes and the congress it would be very good.

Sri Aurobindo: If you have a revolutionary programme and a nation ready to kill or die, then you may indulge in ultimatums. India is not ready even as Ireland was. The people are prepared to get beaten, or to go to jail at the most. So you have to see what can be done.

When India is really free it will think many times before meddling into international problems before it is on its own feet.

Sri Aurobindo: He might say: Hitler began with even less! But

it does not always happen so. Some people remain where they are: Oswald Moseley, for instance, is where he was ten years back, and Brailsford writes every week what everybody should do and nobody seems to do what he says!

Subhas and his group are living even now in the mentality of 1906 and 1907; they don’t know that conditions have changed.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not always by fighting that you get what you want. With all his idealism Gandhi knows how far the people can go and in spite of his inner voice, he knows how far to go (himself).

Arjava died on the 5th May — at Bangalore. He was treated by Dr. Brunitzer. Post mortem examination revealed pericardiatis, six ounces of water from the right side of the heart.

Disciple: Our Dr. X sticks to his Rheumatism theory. The French doctor started with typhoid, but it was negatived by blood examination. Dr. Brunitzer, in the beginning said that it was Septisemia.

Disciple: So, even after the post mortem nobody was wiser. How is this possible that even after the post mortem, they don’t accept the diagnosis?

Sri Aurobindo: You can see that Dr. X is not ready to admit anything other than what he believes. He takes into

consideration only those facts that support his views, and puts all other facts away. So nothing else can come in.

Sri Aurobindo: Intuition is the only way. But even there mental intuition may be right but not always. Mind deals with the possibilities and some may come true. Again true intuition has to be distinguished from the mental imitation of the same, or from mere suggestion or a strong impression.

Sri Aurobindo: There is outer rule; you have to get the psychic tact which throws out the error. For example, the Mother used to feel about the soundness of houses and our engineer used to find out afterwards that her feeling was true, though she does not know architecture or engineering. Another necessity is that one must be sincere about finding the truth by intuition. That is to say, one must not jump at the first idea and run away with it. The mind must be absolutely impartial and also one must be patient and one must wait. One must also test his intuitions.

A letter from a disciple received on the 29th April written to co-disciple here spoke of his experience at Tiruannamalai.

He mentioned in his letter that the resistance in his physical being was broken by the spiritual experience he had there.

Disciple: In the evening a disciple asked Sri Aurobindo: “What

do you think of his saying that the resistance in the physical is gone?”

Sri Aurobindo: I have heard people saying that the body of Maharshi is shaking. How could he have done what he did not do, or did not care to do, for himself, for someone else?

Disciple: But he describes his experience in detail: for instance, the triangle and the Sun and the light pouring into him etc.

Sri Aurobindo: He had always the habit of making mental constructions and living in them. So, his valuation of experience is not right.

Sri Aurobindo: He had a very powerful ego, which he never tried to get rid of when he was here. He always wanted to start an Ashram; whenever you have this kind of ego it always interferes with the understanding and does not allow correct valuation. At every experience he gets his ego swells up and uses the experience to strengthen itself.

Do you think he got it there for the first time? He got hundreds of experiences here.

The subject was Trikal Drishti — knowledge of the Time or the True Time Vision. Why he did not know about the accident was also one of the questions.

Sri Aurobindo: I have not said that I am in full possession of the supramental. People have wrong ideas about these things.

Christ, in spite of his miracles, could not cure anyone in one district. He said: “I can’t because they have no faith.”

People forgot that there are conditions to be fulfilled. It is a question of the divine consciousness working in and through inferior principles, like mind and vital and body and there are conditions to e fulfilled for the working.

Disciple: They say that God being Omnipotence he should be able to do anything however impossible.

Sri Aurobindo: No. Omnipotent does not mean to make God act as our mind wants or expects. Omnipotence does not work in one way; it works in many ways.

Disciple: Is physical relations responsible for the vitiation of pure and idealistic love?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not only the physical but also the vital that is equally responsible. Desire, impulse of possession are more responsible for it than the physical relation.

Disciple: There are people who believe that the physical relation is an essential part of the highest relation of love.

Sri Aurobindo: Blake for instance, says that spiritual love should be sanctified by the physical act.

Sri Aurobindo: Selincourt writing about Blake is like a sheep trying to understand a lion! Blake has got power, you

can say ferocious power, madness and theories too coherent to be sane.

Sri Aurobindo: A time comes in the life of a woman when to surrender herself she feels it as fulfillment, even physically.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends. It can be the psychic love extended to the body. In the psychic relation physical relation is possible; when it takes place it is for procreation. It is a part of the attitude of a female to the male — the attitude of submission. Surrender is more psychic than that.

Disciple: In the physical relation is there no danger of the higher elements getting lost?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the strength of the psychic being. It may be overclouded by the vital and the physical element. Of course, when it is merely physical then there is no adoration and love in it. Psychic relation is not generally found.

Disciple: An individual who has not found his companion, and has hankering or need for one meets a woman whom he loves; now if he keeps his love free from physical and vital elements, i. e. keeps it pure and psychic — does it mean that such a relation is necessary for him — or that is his need?

Sri Aurobindo: No, it can’t be said. It depends on the particular case to say whether it is necessary.

The Vaishnavas wanted to sublimate even the lower

elements of love by bringing them to the Divine. But we know the result; most of them failed. Not that it cannot be done, it can — but it is not easy.

Disciple: You have written in the Synthesis (of Yoga) that ordinary human love can act as a preparation and may be a form of aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo: It was not written for Yogis. It acts like that in ordinary man, if there is a psychic element in it i.e. if it is true love and not vital desire or attachment or impulse for possession. Then it acts as an awakener and uplifter. Blake accepts the physical also as something Divine. The elements of love are: adoration and desire for the union.

Disciple: Is such a love an unconscious seeking for the Divine? It may not bring divine fulfillment but that of love itself.

Sri Aurobindo: If one has found the Divine in oneself then he adores Him and surrenders oneself to him. Such a man can love others — but that is a part of action of universal love.

The spark in human love, even if it is degraded afterwards, tends to awaken the consciousness and evolve the being.

Disciple: If love is an unconscious seeking for the Divine, why some people, who have turned to the Divine will seek the human love, especially here?

Sri Aurobindo: Are they conscious of the Divine? If one is conscious of the Divine, one of the two things would happen: either one would turn exclusively to the Divine or being conscious of the Divine one may keep the human love as an appendage.

Disciple: Supposing a man is unconscious and seeks human love can it not be a seeking for Divine?

Sri Aurobindo: These things are hardly pure — they are always mixed up. It may be only a cover for something else. There are people who, as I said, when turn to the Divine turn away from everything else. But it depends.

For instance, when you turn to the Divine you do not give up your friendship for somebody. Only, if you turn to the Divine the friendship ceases in the old sense, but it taken up so that it does not become an obstacle to the progress of each other.

There may be even individual love apart from universal love which one gets when one is conscious of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: No. I met one of his disciples, a scientist, in the Calcutta National College. When I wrote — in those days — about the Avatar, he said the Avatar is already there. Afterwards he himself recanted his avatarhood when the shooting affair took place.

He has an idea of establishing world peace by bringing all nations together. He can say that he established the League of Nations and somebody else has disestablished it.

Disciple: He used to keep nothing for the morrow in his organization — he depended entirely on Divine Grace.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and he also started, I believe, Sannyasi marriage — I can’t say, if it was real marriage or spiritual. But he had something real in him.

Disciple: Another Avatar is coming out from Poona. He is going to declare himself in 1941.

Sri Aurobindo: No objection. But there is great danger of imagination mixing up in such things.

Sri Aurobindo: No, perhaps romantic. There can also be a mixture of mysticism combined with romance. When one deals with mysticism one has to be very careful, because there are many truths and also many imaginations.

Disciple: The Rosicrusians also believe in the reality of mystic experience of Christianity.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, X belonged to that group in England. But it created a lot of difficulty in his Sadhana because they posit two things in man, good and evil persons. The evil person has to rise up in order to be got rid of by the good. There are already sufficient evil things in the world without evoking the evil person. The Europeans have very imperfect understanding of these things. Even the Christian mystics have hardly any clear idea about them.

Disciple: That is so because, perhaps, they do not want to get rid of their individuality.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. They mix up the self and the ego even when they have identification with the Higher Consciousness; they think that it is the ego which has become that.

Disciple: A says, Gita’s idea of freedom demands freedom from nature — Prakriti. Therefore, so long as man follows Buddhi he is not free.

Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another thing. The question is whether Buddhi can help you to detach yourself or not and whether, it can lead you to the perception of something higher than itself.

Sri Aurobindo: I also think so. Otherwise what is the meaning of Gita laying so much stress on Buddhi? Buddhi helps you to detach yourself and prepares you for the higher perception of the Purusha. And even Shankar, I believe does not say that reason is quite useless. He also admits that reason prepares the human spirit for what is beyond. Even for going beyond Sattwa, it is a stepping stone.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is an instrument of Nature that helps you to rise to the higher Nature. Gita, as I said, maintains that Buddhi can perceive that which is beyond it.

Disciple: A does not want to admit O’s contention that Kant’s idea of following reason and Gita’s Buddhi yoga are the same.

Sri Aurobindo: Well, in a controversy one has to see the truth in the other man’s point of view.

Disciple: A told me that Kant changed his mind later in life and admitted the necessity of faith with which he deals in his “Critique of practical reason.”

Disciple: Moreover, it does not interest us so much as there is no practical side to their philosophy.

Sri Aurobindo: That was X’s great complaint that people here want always something practical from philosophy. They don’t want to think for the sake of thinking.

Disciple: Kant seems to say that he who follows his reason is free, who follows the senses is bound. This is, in part, an Indian idea.

Sri Aurobindo: They have no idea of freedom — mukti — in the Indian sense; their idea is to arrive at the Truth.

Disciple: Yes, some sort of idealism. It is not spiritualism. In his “critique of practical reason”, Kant maintains that “pure reason” is an abstract faculty hardly to be found unmixed in man and so practical reason is necessary.

Disciple: It is only an unattainable ideal. A says that the contention of Kant’s opponent is that every body follows reason. So, everybody should be considered free. Everyone justifies his action — even the thief supports his stealing by some reasoning.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a reason that is bound. There is another reason which is detached, and, according to Gita, the

man will not be free when he reasons about stealing but if he can steal with disinterestedness then he is free.

Sri Aurobindo: All these European philosophers after the Greeks admit that Reason is the faculty by which you arrive at the Truth. The question about the sense perceptions and their reliability is easily met. We perceive certain things by our senses and the sensations, for all men are the same because our senses have a common organizations. Even then different persons perceive the same thing differently.

If Reason could work in the abstract and be an ideal faculty it might arrive at the perception of Truth beyond itself. As it is, Reason practically deals with different ideas and there reason differs in different individuals.

What I say is that if reason was sufficient for arriving at the Truth then all reason would arrive at the same condition. And we find out that different persons using reason arrive at contrary conclusions even from the same premises.

Reason can perceive that there is something beyond itself that is the Truth. But it tries to assert the Truth — it perceives as the whole truth. But reason is not right when it says so. The Truth is infinite and has infinite sides. Each conclusion of reason has some truth in it and we have to find something that is fundamental behind the particular formulation of the reason, and that is a matter of experience. That which is behind is the Absolute and the Absolute cannot be known by reason.

What can be known by the mind is Sat, Chit, Ananda. In other words, when the Absolute presents itself to the mind it formulates itself as Sachchidananda.

Sri Aurobindo: All Vedanta asserts that mind and speech cannot express it, because as soon as you put it in mental terms you limit it. Up to the Overmind some how you can manage to express yourself but when you come to Supermind it is impossible. And if you go still higher and approach the Absolute it is still more impossible.

Sri Aurobindo: If you go beyond you find wherever there is a personal, there is the impersonal and vice versa.

Sri Aurobindo: Throw reason aside, then you find the reconciliation. You have to go on with experience till you find the reconciling experience in which all find their truth. Each is an approach to the Absolute. In a certain sense one could even say that reason would not be right if it did not differ. For instance, if the descriptions of all the countries were the same it would not perhaps do. And yet the earth is one and so is mankind and human nature. All is One.

Disciple: About the knowledge of identity, is the identity of Sushupti the same as knowledge by identity?

Sri Aurobindo: No, it is not the same as knowledge by identity. They all speak of knowledge of the self by identity. But there can be the knowledge of other things also by identity.

Sri Aurobindo: Direct knowledge is the knowledge of the

truth of things directly; it is not necessarily knowledge of the Self or Spirit.

Disciple: It seems, the ancients had it and it is said that Raja yogis get it by what they call Sanyama.

Sri Aurobindo: I suppose they meant by Sanyama putting the pressure of consciousness upon the thing to be known.

But if one has the true consciousness it does not require concentrating. One has only to put it.

Disciple X was laughing and Y was present. Sri Aurobindo turned his head inquiringly as to mean: What is the cause of the laughter.

Disciple: My presence acts as a catalytic agent, so I myself do not know the cause nor what is the joke.

Sri Aurobindo: That is how the subliminal self acts, without your knowledge, while your surface consciousness is ignorant about it.

Disciple: But to return to N’s question. If one takes the standpoint of reason and wants to decide about the validity of spiritual experience he will find the experiences also differ. So how can experience be a criterion.

Sri Aurobindo: Experience is not a criterion; it is a means of arriving at the Truth. Experience is one thing and the expression is another. You are again putting reason as a judge of experience which is about expression. When men differ in laying stress or in their mental preference for this or that side of the expression, it does not mean that the experience itself is not valid. It is only

when you try to put it in mental language that the differences arise. That is why the Vedantis say that mind and speech can’t express the Truth. As soon as you put it in mental terms you limit it. If you find that experiences differ, then you have to go on having experiences till you come to the reconciling experience in which all find their place.

The Truth, as I said is infinite and there are infinite sides or points of view of it and each conclusion of reason expresses something of that infinite. All of them express some particular view, but they are all wrong when they say that their view is the whole and the entire Truth.

When you want to describe a spiritual experience you are obliged to use mental terms and you can somehow manage it, so long as you deal with levels up to the Overmind. But when you enter the Supermind then it is impossible. And if you proceed still higher towards the Absolute, well, it is still more impossible.

Sri Aurobindo: It takes up one standpoint and says the others are wrong. If it takes up the Impersonal, it says the personal cannot be true and vice versa. Reason would not be right if it did not differ. It would be as if the descriptions of all the countries were the same — then they won’t be true.

Sri Aurobindo: If you describe Switzerland and U. S. A. in the same way, how can it be true? (After sometime) And yet the earth is One and mankind is One.

There is the Personal and also the Impersonal. When

you transcend both of you arrive at the Absolute.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but it does not mean that they are less true or that Absolute excludes them. These preferences are mental. It is when you throw aside reason that you arrive at the Absolute.

Disciple: There is a verse in the Upanishad for knowledge by identity — leaving aside the mind. “One must become one with that like an arrow piercing the mark.”

Sri Aurobindo: That won’t fit exactly, because knowledge by identity is much more than that. Generally they mean by “knowledge by identity” the knowledge of self; while that is one part of the knowledge by identity.

Disciple: In Raja yoga, they speak of direct knowledge by Sanyama. I do not know if they mean by Sanyama concentration of consciousness on the object. That is by putting the pressure of consciousness on the thing to be known. It need not necessarily require concentrating on it when the true consciousness is there and it comes in contact with the object; it knows it directly.

Disciple: Raja Yoga speaks of Siddhis also e. g. control over matter or knowledge of Suryaloka and Chandraloka, conquest of death etc.

Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge of Suryaloka and Chandraloka one may have, but conquest of death is another matter. The Raja Yoga does not acquire Siddhis by wanting them; they speak of Siddhis coming to them. And it is true for those who enter a certain state of consciousness.

Disciple: The Hindu Mahasabha this year has got a large number of delegates from the two provinces with Muslim majority.

Disciple: Do you think that the Hindu Mahasabha if it is organized would weaken the Congress?

Sri Aurobindo: The Congress may allow the Mahasabha to settle the question with the Muslims by organizing the Hindus instead of nationalist Hindus quarreling among themselves. If the Congress can do something effective then it would be all right.

Disciple: There are some people who object to “Vande Mataram” as a national song. And some Congress men support the removal of some parts of the song.

Disciple: The argument is that the song speaks of Hindu gods, like Durga and that is offensive to the Muslims.

Sri Aurobindo: But it is not a religious song. It is a national song and the Durga spoken of is India as the Mother. Why should not the Muslims accept it? It is an image used in poetry. In the Indian conception of nationality the Hindu view would naturally be there. If it cannot find a place there the Hindus may as well be asked to give up their culture. The Hindus don’t object to “Allah-ho-Akbar”.

Disciple: If they call India “Allah-ho-Akbar” then Hindus would not object to it.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not in the Hindu nature to object to such things. Why should not the Hindu worship his God? Otherwise, the Hindu must either accept Mohammedanism or the European culture or become atheists.

Disciple: And why should not the Muslims accept some Hindu idea, if for nothing else then for coming to a settlement?

Disciple: The Congress says the question cannot be solved as long as the third party is there.

Sri Aurobindo: I told C. R. Das (in 1923) that this Hindu-Muslim question must be solved before the Britishers go, otherwise there was a danger of civil war. He also agreed and wanted to solve it.

Disciple: The Congress thinks if the Britishers go, the Muslims may be forced to come to a settlement.

Sri Aurobindo: The Congress says: whatever agreements we come to must be accepted by the Britishers.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course not. He would say: come to a settlement and we will accept it. It is only two ways of looking at the same things. But it is better to have a settlement before, because otherwise any third party might take advantage and come in. It is no use having again somebody else to dominate India.

Disciple: Any neighboring countries can come and even distant countries like Japan cannot be ruled out; even Russia. But how is this problem to be solved?

Sri Aurobindo: The best solution would be if Congress got the majority of the nationalist Muslims on their side, and then take the Sindh Premier who wants to be with them. Thus they can retain Sindh for the Congress — and then in the Punjab they could come to some understanding with Sikandar Hayat Khan. If they had not driven out Khalikuzaman in U. P. there would have been no Muslim League in the U. P. If the Congress had joined with the Krishak Party in Bengal then the Congress would not be so badly off.

Instead of doing what was necessary the Congress is trying to flirt with Jinnah and Jinnah simply thinks that he has to obstinately stick to his terms to get them. The more they try the more Jinnah becomes intransigent.

Disciple: There was an idea that the Congress should have mass contact with the Muslims and it is unfortunate that the Congress did not take it up.

Jinnah is appealing to the Hindu Minorities to join him. So why should not the Congress ask Muslims to be with it? If the Congress does not do anything then I think the Hindu Mahasabha will do some good after all. Don’t you think so?

Sri Aurobindo: That is not the best thing. But if the Hindus organized themselves then it would make some rational Muslims think again and it would give men like Sir Akbar, who want to come to a compromise, a chance to intervene.

Disciple: The Khilafat agitation was a great mistake; it only added to the fanaticism of the Muslims without giving them patriotism or nationalism.

Disciple: I had a talk with G about Rigveda and on the Aryan — Dravidian question. He gave me one or two arguments to support his contention. According to him the fact of different children in the same family having different colours is a positive argument that race of the parents is a mixed one. Secondly, in the Rigveda itself there is mention of dark-skinned people and “Anasa.”

I said “Anasa” figures only in one Rik out of more than ten thousand Riks and it may not mean “nose-less” or “flat-nosed.”

Disciple: I consulted the Rigveda and found that it refers only to the Dasyus and not to non-Aryans.

Sri Aurobindo: The Orientalists also wanted to prove the

existence of Linga worship in the Rigveda by citing a Rik in which the word “Shishnadevah” occurs.

Disciple: K. M. Munshi in tracing the origin of Bhakti long ago wrote that devotion is nothing else but sublimation of the sex-impulse, and he tried to trace the origin in the Rigveda.I contradicted his view even then and showed that “Shishna-deva” only means sensualists.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. And what have they to say about the Dravidian tribe in Baluchistan? Is it black and flat-nosed? How on earth do they find out these things from the Rigveda-nomadic existence, gambling, and crossings of the rivers, which to me is mystical. I also find that the fight between Tristsu and Sudansah in the eighth Mandala is not merely a battle, it is something symbolic.

Disciple: That is one of their strongest points in the Indologist armoury. If one can get the clue to the symbol of the ten Kings that would be the end of their theory.

Disciple: Did you hear J’s interpretation of your poem Trance? He says that the “star” in the poem stands for the individual, and the “moon” in the poem is the Universal.

Sri Aurobindo: If it is there I am not aware of it. His interpretation is not very much unlike that of a Western scholar; he seems to read his own mind into the text but that is not poetry — it is metaphysics. I have explained the terms myself: “star” is the star of creation, and “moon” is the sudden upheaval of the inner life, and “ocean-self” is true-being. There is no philosophy in it.

Disciple: But N. began to have guidance as soon as he started his Yoga. He has a mind which seems to be opened to the intuitive faculty.

Sri Aurobindo: A man of successful action gets a sort of insight which is half-intuition; while a man of intellect is generally handicapped and thinks of various possibilities saying: this will happen, that will happen.

Sri Aurobindo: He has but for action he feels what will happen and seizes upon it. He acts upon the suggestion and in most cases it turns out to be right. Not that he does not go wrong at all. The nature of his mind is such that he is open to this intuitive faculty of action. The English people are so successful because they have a knack of getting vital intuition which leads to success. Even if they commit mistakes and jumble things together, in the end their intuition comes to their help and pulls them out of the difficulty. The French on the other hand are more logical. They think and reason.

Disciple: The English are thinking of Finland more actively because they are afraid of German-Russian naval combination in the Baltic.

Sri Aurobindo: But how are they going to help? They

require ammunition and military equipment for themselves. I don’t know how they have enough to spare. Referring to N

Are you trying to get intuition in the medical faculty? Instead of limiting to one special field of activity why not try in a general way?

Sri Aurobindo: For everything. For example, what X. is going to do next or if you are a reader of novel you try to get what will follow. Of course, it is for an expert novel reader to say that. After all, many people get intuition without knowing it.

Sri Aurobindo: Not discovered, but created by changing the position of the particles in the atom. What are they going to do with them?

Disciple: The cost of producing them will be prohibitive. Though the method of breaking up by Cyclotron is cheap. Raman has supported Einstein’s theory about unity of matter and energy.

Disciple: Modern scientists have stopped asking that question. They only concern themselves with the “how” and not the “why” or the “what”. But their own discoveries will make the question more pointed.

Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. Because the question is why a different combination of atomic particles should make a different element.

Disciple: Once energy was said to be tubes of force and there was theory of vortices in vogue.

Sri Aurobindo: That means force in movement. You know energy when it is in activity and then the question arises what is force?

Sri Aurobindo: Unless you accept a Being behind who applies the force and also becomes matter there is not other explanation. When they are given this reply they say it is all nonsense. They explain it by saying it is nature. They don’t know what is nature. It is merely giving a name. Nature stands for a magic formula, a Maya and they explain everything by that formula.

Disciple: The scientists swore by the rigorous law of causation but now they find it difficult to apply it in their investigations.

Sri Aurobindo: What is causation? It only means that certain conditions follow certain other conditions.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no other explanation. I have said that in the Life Divine.

Sri Aurobindo: I have said in the Life Divine that you can not explain the appearance of consciousness out of Matter unless you accept a Being behind. The Being may be either Unmanifest and involved in Matter or it may be Manifest.

Disciple: Another Disciple: They have despaired of even that! They have come to the materialistic conception of the Universe. They speak of tensorial law.

Disciple: In a publication of the Gita Press the writer is trying to prove the efficacy of repeating Divine name and of the Kirtan. He cites Tulsidas in support of his contention.

Disciple: There is a story of Ajamil in the Puranas to support the efficacy of repeating the Name.

Sri Aurobindo: The value of Name and Kirtan depends upon awakening of the Psychic Being and its influence over other parts of nature.

Sri Aurobindo: Very often it ends in awakening the vital instead of the psychic being.

Sri Aurobindo: He has his own way of doing the yoga and the seclusion, I believe, is temporary.

Sri Aurobindo: It is wrong to say that I do not accept life because I do not actively participate in it. It is true I am not for acceptance of life as it is. I accept life, i. e. nature, for transformation.

Disciple: Some of our disciples are not taking part in ordinary life but can we say that they are retired? Or can we say that they are not doing your yoga?

Disciple: X. here likes ordering people about, he seems full of anger, egoism, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: That changes last because the outer being is the last to change; it does not mean that there has been no progress within.

Disciple: In the world also you find people who are not

jealous and are peaceful. The difficulty is how to find them without attaining inner perfection oneself.

Sri Aurobindo: X felt peace and immediately went in for the yoga. It is nothing compared to what is yet to be done. In many people I see the light which I don’t see in worldly people.

“New Statesman” condemns Huxley’s book “After many summer” as a witty parody thrown into philosophy.

Sri Aurobindo: Then it is no worse than Anthony West. He does not seem to admit wit even. They say Forster is also philosophical.

Disciple: Tagore in his novels analyses various psychological movements which common people can’t understand. Sharatchandra can be said to be a non-intellectual writer.

Disciple: He has in some of his writings pleaded the cause of Western civilization or culture by taking the opposite line of arguments, but to me they have seemed always to be weak. For example, his heroine does not find anything grand in the conception behind the Taj Mahal.

Sri Aurobindo: What is there European about it? The one thing they like is the Taj.

Disciple: I don’t mean the architectural beauty, but he ridicules the ideal of immortal love.

Sri Aurobindo: From that point of view Europeans like the idea of immortal love. In fact love has a great place in their life.

Disciple: Love in the sense of emotion directed to one person alone and continuing even if the person is dead. Sharat’s heroines cannot bear this. He seems to advocate re-marriage or no marriage as far as I understand.

Sri Aurobindo: Why is it European? In Europe no one advocates such an idea except a few intellectuals. If you want to abolish the institution of marriage they will raise a hue and cry.

Disciple: The world is Swayambhu — self-existent — according to Jainism. God can’t have created world because he lacks motive.

Sri Aurobindo: Do you create because you are unhappy? Nirod writes poetry because he is miserable?

Disciple: If God has not created the world, you can’t get his help in liberation.

Disciple: In Jainism each one gets liberation by his own effort. Even Tirthankars don’t help.

Disciple: He is like an example. It is Shasan Devatas who are worshippers of Tirthankars that help.

Sri Aurobindo: Then you can worship the Devas. If Devas worship Tirthankars they should not help either because their ideal is the attainment of Tirthankars. Why should they help? It is also contradiction of the law of Karma. If Karma brings its own reward inevitably then help of God is unnecessary. If God helps and intervenes effectively and changes the result of action, then the law of Karma is not true.

Sri Aurobindo: If you believe in Purushartha you can’t expect Grace of God. How can you pray to help you?

Disciple: For myself I believe. They believe each one is alone and they say: “I have come alone and will go alone.” This feeling will give Vairagya.

Sri Aurobindo: If he is alone, how does the Tirthankars and Acharyas, so many, infinite number of, Siddhas crowded in Siddhasila come in? Like all religions it is fantastically illogical. Buddha also said the same thing, but the religion says: “Buddham Saranam Gachchhami.” So also in Jainism.

Disciple: In Jainism self-mortification persists. In Buddhism there is not. Buddha gave it up after a trial. Buddha and Mahavir were contemporaries but they don’t seem to have met. Mahavir was born in Vaisali.

Disciple: In Jainism each soul is bound by ignorance and there are three ties of that ignorance and three ways of liberation. This has been symbolized in the Swastika.

Sri Aurobindo: They took it from Sankhya. Their whole stand is on the Sankhya. (Disciple M.) was repeating Navakar like Gayatri.

Disciple: Bijoy Goswami passed the last years of his life in Puri and he came to the conclusion that so long as poverty was there in India spiritual and religious teaching had no chance. One of his disciples writes in the last issue of the “Kalyan” that in his last years he believed in Dana Yagna — charity. So much so that he ran into big debts and when his health was failing the disciple had to arrange for the money to pay up the loan, because Bejoy Goswami said that he could not leave Puri before paying the debt and he asked his disciples not to be calculating and practical but do the work, as a Divine work, without thinking of tomorrow.

Sri Aurobindo: It is one thing to think of tomorrow and quite another to try to remove poverty by feeding the poor. People don’t understand that philanthropy cannot remove poverty, it can at the most relieve it. If you want to remedy poverty you must find the causes of poverty and remove them. And it is not a correct idea that when people have plenty they will think of God, since the greater number of spiritual people have been those who have renounced everything and lived on very little. As soon as people have money they forget those who have no money.

Disciple: His idea was that people cannot believe that God is all-merciful, kind and loving, unless at least their physical needs are satisfied.

Sri Aurobindo: If the idea is that God is all compassionate and must look after everybody’s food and cloth then of course his principle would be true.

Disciple: At last all his disciples had to collect large sums far away in Bengal and send him the money to pay the debts, but he never reached Calcutta. I believe he died in Puri.

Disciple: But I heard that he was poisoned by some jealous Sadhus; he made Sthambhan — control — on poison for some time, but ultimately he could not prevail.

Sri Aurobindo: It depends. He says what is uppermost in his mind, and what suits him at the moment, according to his moods. But it may be a change in his attitude, but difficult to say if there is any progress. The change may be due to his having failed in every thing after going from here and the Ashram growing out since. That may have impressed him. It may be due to mental causes also.

Disciple: He admits that he had fallen from the path and his attitude towards Mother.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. He says things according to his own mood and what suits him. He wrote one book on Mother and

asked Andrews for introduction. Andrews refused saying: “I know the Mother”. About the Ashram Moore also refused to believe his criticisms.

Disciple: Mother says this is “a year of silence and expectation.” For this what is to be done?

Disciple: He wants to know whether the literary work he is doing by the approval of the Mother is not going to interrupt the silence especially if he goes for controversy.

Sri Aurobindo: I suppose one can do the work in silence. But he should not engage in controversy. He has too combative a mind. If he goes in for controversy naturally silence will be interrupted.

Disciple: If he does this sort of work and somebody contradicts, naturally he will have to re-contradict.

Sri Aurobindo: Why? Many people criticize me. I don’t answer. It is not necessary that he should answer.

Disciple: N and I decided not to convert any other people about Vedic interpretations but to go on repeating over and over again our own point.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. When people find that the opponent does not answer they lose all interest.

Disciple: He says it is true he has lost touch with the reality of the external world. Now if he reads Manchester Guardian and New Stateman will it disturb his silence?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on his mind. If he can read all these things in order to know what is going on, it is alright, but he should not run away with any idea or programme. He was asked not to read papers because his mind was slave to politics and attracted by the ideas. The fundamental peace and silence is all right, but he should bring the attitude of the Purusha in his reading also.

Sri Aurobindo: All-India consciousness. You can tell him that he must not attack or contradict people. When he reads anything he must not allow his mind to run away with any ideas, but take up the attitude of the witness and see from where these things come. And if he does not allow the mind to identify with any of them he will know the right source of action and knowledge. You were talking of Cosmic Consciousness. All these ideas are there in the general Prana and have equal validity from the point of Cosmic Consciousness. They may be as much true as his own i.e. when Basanta Chatterji contradicts him there is some truth in what he says. He has to see what distortion the mind has brought in democracy — personal ambitions — boycott — S — he has lost his head — like Europe — part of universal movement.

Disciple: D also used to have many brilliant ideas e. g. common kitchen, cleaning, Baroda city.

Sri Aurobindo: Ideas are always brilliant. Co-operation is always possible, because each finds his self-interest in the interest of others.

Sri Aurobindo: He was just beginning his career. That sort of leadership is nothing. If you have the gift of the gab and power of ideas and putting form into them, you can always succeed. All politics is a show. In British Parliament it is the Civil service who are behind, and whose names are never known, that really do the work. The Ministers are only their mouthpieces except a man like Churchill and Hore-Belisha who can do something.

Mother’s brother, for instance, he organized the Congo land in Africa, but the Minister got all the credit for it. He was one of the great colonial administrators and even when he was officer in Equatorial Africa, sometimes Governor or Governor General, the whole job was done by him. He hardly had a bed and used to lie in easy chair. Now he is nearly seventy but, as soon as the war was declared he went to the Office and asked for his work and now he is working eighteen hours a day.

A is living in his mind. No “isms” or mental programme will do, if you want to base things on the Spirit. They are all out of count. It is the repetition of the old mental way. Are the villagers going to understand my philosophy? If he goes to work, he will find himself out of touch with realities and will have the same fall as B. B went out to revolutionize the world.

Disciple: These things can be only done by Government. It is better to get the Government.

Disciple: Yes, but both constructive work and this kind of political work can go together as Gandhi is doing.

R was talking to C in the train that his difficulty was about accepting Mother, because he said they used to meditate together and therefore he found it difficult to accept her.

Disciple: Nobody ever meditated with the Mother before the Ashram came into existence in 1926.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but that was individual. She was coming to me and her position was special even from the very beginning. There was no comparison between others and Mother. There were people in the Ashram who thought that Mother had done no Sadhana before she came to India.

Disciple: Why Hitler says that he wants to finish this campaign before August 15th? [August 15th happens to be the birthday of Sri Aurobindo.]

Sri Aurobindo: That’s a clear indication, if an indication was necessary, that he is the enemy of our work.

Disciple: Is it that he fears that descent might take place on August 15th which might make his work more difficult?

Sri Aurobindo: This force does not believe in Divine descent, but it is a sort of challenge that, “I will finish my first decisive victory before August 15th”. That shows the nature of the conflict.

Sri Aurobindo: yes. But this is the leading (spirit). That being has often come here to see what was being done. Did you read Richard’s book “The Lord of the Nations”?

Sri Aurobindo: The book was never published, but he wrote it at a time when he was in communication with that being.

Disciple: Most of these people do not believe in any religion. They want to give up and suppress Christianity.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what I meant when I said these people have guarded the Barbarian in them. What they have got is scientific knowledge, mechanical skill, but other cultural activities that used to be there, are all suppressed, and Hitler suppresses them where ever he goes. He has suppressed them in Poland, in Czechoslovakia.

Disciple: Man is only used by these people as a part of machinery and organization.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they are crude conceptions of the primitive instinct of mankind. Even though Odin is considered a God of knowledge it is more or less primary instincts that are symbolized.

Disciple: Do these beings know the existence of the Divine and deny it? or are they ignorant about it?

Sri Aurobindo: It depends on the nature of the being. They know the existence of Gods for instance, but they do not consider them higher than themselves.

Disciple: Yes, and they do not merely ignore the Gods but claim to evolve a world-order of their own.

Sri Aurobindo: When these beings act by themselves no human power can stand against them. It is alright so long as there is a question of influencing men, that is to say the Divine influence as well as Asuric working. But, when it is a question of incarnation, as in the case of Hitler, then it is a different matter.

Disciple: That makes the conflict between the Gods and the Asuras represented in the Puranas very realistic even for our times, because, generally the Gods used to get beaten by Asuras and run for protection either to Mahakali or to Rudra or to Vishnu.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the intervention of the Divine that can become effective, and in this German and Stalin affair it is the question of the descent of the whole vital world on this earth. That is what has puzzled most people, specially those intellectual people who were thinking in terms of idealism. They never expected such a thing and now when it has come they don’t understand how it has come and what is to be done; they are all puzzled.

Disciple: If the Asuric forces incarnated in Hitler and others in Germany, is there no one on this side of allies who incarnates a Divine force?

Sri Aurobindo: No. Unfortunately there is none. They are all ordinary men; there is no one who can receive the Force. Perhaps Marshal Petain may be able to receive but he is too old I think.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know him; in such times if you have men who do not conform to the science or the rules it is an advantage. We require men with ideas and daring. Hore Belisha would have been a very good choice on English side. If they had put Lord Halifax for India it would have been easy to arrive at an understanding with the Congress. Mother also does not find anybody who can receive.

Disciple: Jean Herbert when he was here was very hopeful that there will be no war. The queer thing was that he believed that the dictators will get whatever they ask for, only if they ask strongly enough.

Sri Aurobindo: They could get France also if they ask strongly? Nivedita a French lady, was telling this time, those French people who have gone to the war are those who have no enthusiasm for idealism. They all seem to have gone to fight with defeatist mentality. That way it is difficult to succeed against Germany.

Disciple: Referred to Sir Arthur Henderson’s book “Failure of my Mission in Germany”?

Disciple: Jwalanti was telling that in that book Sir Arthur Henderson speaks of Hitler as a man who works under possession.

Disciple: He also described the condition of a young man who is her friend’s son and who was in the diplomatic service when he returned from Berlin. She said that his people could not recognize him when he came. He said that while in Germany he felt as if he was put inside a metallic bomb and every minute somebody was pumping more air into it so that he could not breathe properly.

Sri Aurobindo: The whole general atmosphere in Germany seems to be dominated by these forces. Young men actually taught to become devils. In Poland when the Poles complained to German General about cruelty by the soldiers the General said: Don’t complain. This is nothing. Wait, let the Nazis come and you will know what cruelty is.

Sri Aurobindo: It was a great revolutionary step, but for the war it could never have passed. Because all along the English history has been the struggle for individual liberty. And this is a negation of all that. I believe, it must be due to the pressure of the labour members.

The question of taking Narwic arose and it was reported that it took up position without loss of a single soldier.

Sri Aurobindo: It must be very Ahimsak fight where both sides take up position without shedding a drop of blood.

In one sense one can say, history it repeating itself because Greco-Roman culture was destroyed by German Nordic hordes and today it is again the Germans who are trying to destroy the centre of European culture. The Asura working behind Hitler has been giving him very correct and remarkably accurate guidance. He knows what is possible. That is why Hitler has never been listening to reason. He only waits for the voice. Till now it has guided him correctly. One mistake, it seems, it has made it to think that when he attacked Poland he thought that England will not go to war. Otherwise he has direct guidance which Napoleon did not get.

The question was put to Sri Aurobindo whether the Asuras can have the power of vision.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they have. Vision is not only on the spiritual level. It can be on the vital and on the subtle physical level, and can be very accurate.

Sri Aurobindo: No, they can predict accurately. There are instances in which the exact hour and minute has been predicted. Instance on the point is of the Charles of Burgendy who was taken prisoner by Louis XI. He had made arrangements with his guards that if he said “be in peace or pass in peace” then he should not be killed but if he did not give nay such sign the astrologer who visited the jail where Charles was prisoner should be killed. Then, he asked the astrologer the time of his death. He said he could not give the exact date but it was 24 hours before the death of Louis XI. Louis took great care to see that he was saved, and years afterwards it came out that actually Louis died 24 hours after his death. This happening Scott has described in his novel.

About the surrender of Paris, Sri Aurobindo said: How can they allow Germans to enter Paris without fighting? If the old civilization is to be destroyed, it is better that it is destroyed heroically.

Disciple: Advaitanand met some sadhak at Tiruvanamalai who was arguing with him that knowledge need not be accompanied by power.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is true. It depends on whether you lean on the side of witness Purusha or power or both. If

a man realizes the Sad aspect, the Pure Being, he may have no power, because Pure Being does not act. On the contrary, there may be those who may know many things but have no power to act. Generally even in the mind you see that a man may have much knowledge but he may be very weak. Even in the case of those who realize the power aspect the power may not be always used.

It was asked if Sri Aurobindo knows all the possibilities connected with the war.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they are known as possibilities. We do not accept anything as absolutely certain.

On the 17th (curiously enough Richard Paul’s birth day) Petain proposed an armistice and all thought that France was lost.

Sri Aurobindo: All these heroes of the last war — how could they propose a truce? How can they expect anything honourable from Hitler? It would be an end of France. They have become decadent.

Disciple gave the instance of French coins and Mother said: what coins are these? They are the coins of a ruined country.

Disciple: I quite understand how it must be impossible for France to continue the war. They began without enthusiasm for the war, but even afterwards Government servants

are seen actually wishing for such a peace! There is a soldier in the hospital who even says “what is the use of fighting? For whom?”

Sri Aurobindo: That is the decadent mind, when men think more of their safety and comfortable living and want to live in peace at any price.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is their Karma. But if they can go through the suffering and pay the price they can wipe off their Karma.

Sri Aurobindo was even for the defense of Paris. He did not like that it should have been undefended. When a culture is going down, let it go down a little heroically.

Sri Aurobindo: I think they will. At least they are not known to give up so easily in the past, unless they have changed considerably (as the French).

In the light of this, one admires the resistance of Poland and Finland. In spite of very bad leadership and ill-equipment they fought bravely to the end and did not ask for terms.

I don’t think that they are lost. On the 18th morning Churchill’s proposal was out for an “Anglo-French Union.”

There was panic last evening — Everybody thought France had given up. In fact due to a variety of causes the

French soldiers are not fighting. They think in terms of communism and capitalism etc.

There are only two chances: either if Hitler dies soon, then the work may be undone or if the people last out.

Sri Aurobindo liked Churchill’s proposal and said: English people do not like an idea for the sake of the idea. But they have a feeling for what is possible, what is necessary. They have a great flexibility in politics and they have shown it by declaring in England State — socialism (He said, in between, once that the British Labour Party had secured rights for the workers, but has not been strong in pressing the claim of India upon the present cabinet) and this Anglo-French Union is another move.

Disciple: The prospect of a joint English and French Parliament is very humourous.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the French members will be fighting among themselves and the English will be shaking their heads and saying “most unparliamentary”.

Disciple: Can the French yet resist? And if the French give up can the English resist?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? That is why we Indians cannot win. Once we are defeated, we always think that if you are defeated you have to give up. It is not like that. The greatness lies in not giving up the struggle and refusing to accept the defeat as final. You can defeat me any number of times but I am not going to give up. The British have stood out alone against victorious powers in the past.

If the French decided to resist, they have the Navy

and Air-force intact and their colonial army and colonies. From there they can resist till they win.

The Belgian and Holland Governments have not given up, why should the French? And even if the Anglo-French Union does not become permanent they can have a very powerful federation with Holland, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia and they can request India to join it voluntarily as an equal partner. That would obviate the conservative fear about making a sweeping change in India. They have always a fear that it is against tradition, too much out of her way.

No nation can be great on the principle of maintaining their existence, unless it stands for some great cause or idealism or something great. (In this case, it is the imponderable that is more important than the ponderable).

When P referred to Churchill’s speech yesterday explaining that the French really lost the battle in Flanders, where they lost 25 divisions and said that it comes to about at the most 3 lakhs, Sri Aurobindo said that French divisions are smaller of about 15 or 18 thousands each. So P wondered what happened to other 17 lakhs.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what I don’t understand how they complain of want of men. Chamberlain and Daladiar both seem to be the same. I do not know whether it is stupidity or treachery.

Somebody raised a question of complaint that the British were not sending sufficient men.

Sri Aurobindo: You must remember that Britain is not a country with conscription. They have not got a big

standing army. It takes time to prepare and equip men, and yet they sent 4 lakhs with the best equipment they could have which was not small force for England, and they were obliged to retreat and take back 3? lakhs.

Disciple: It seemed that after the fall of Paris Britishers have sent 4 lakhs of men.

Sri Aurobindo: No, there seems to be some confusion. They could not have sent so many because before the Renau cabinet resigned Churchill said that he had sent 3 divisions already and would be sending in all one lakh by the end of June. But as usual these over sensitive French military men in their over-suspiciousness did not believe in Churchill’s words.

Sri Aurobindo: Because the army has no organization left and because the morale was broken first by the fall of Paris and secondly by the peace talks. Everybody thinks, “What is the use of dying today if tomorrow they are going to conclude peace.” There is no heart in the fighting.

Disciple: At that rate they will find after some time, they can’t oppose Hitler.

Sri Aurobindo: It is as Mother says that Hitler does not want to give his terms before he destroys the French army. It seems the same condition that was in time of Napoleon III when France lost the war. It is due to party quarrels and jealousies. Politicians trying to meddle in the

government instead of doing their own work. Their dissatisfaction with England is quite meaningless because Churchill clearly said that it would take some months to make the loss of materials in the Flanders. It is no use putting an ill-equipped army against Germans.

Gamalin was a fraud and Weigand has not proved exceptional. If some military genius had arisen he could have saved the situation. It seems that Hitler is going to ask for those colonies from France that are near British possession. In that case he may ask for Pondicherry.

Sri Aurobindo: O yes, they know everything. Children are taught most wonderful details about the cities and even villages in England and France. They have got a school where they train future Governors of England. So far as organization is concerned there are only two people who cannot be surpassed: The Germans and the Japanese. In the last war they found maps in Germany of English villages in which the position of trees and houses were also indicated.

There was a reference to Hiranya-garbha which I took to him. He had explained two days back that “Hiranya-garbha has nothing to do with Supermind”, besides “Hiranya-garbha is a being while Supermind is not a being.”

Disciple: It is a plane of being or a plane of consciousness. A world of its own.

Sri Aurobindo: Exactly so. Hiranya-garbha refers to the universal subjective, while the “Virat” is universal objective. In the Rigveda there is only one reference to “Hiranya-garbha” (10 Mandal 121 when I read the hymn to him.)

I said there is a Hymn in R. V. II. 12, which is also familiar in wording and conception, but which refers to Indra.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there are several hymns in which the various Gods like Agni, Indra, etc. are spoken of as creators. But it is not the same thing as what I call the “Supermind as a creator”. The word in the old philosophy which can convey the idea of the Supermind as a creator is “Prajna” — the Knower. He creates for himself, but Prajna is spoken of as superconscient because it is above the ordinary mental consciousness and ordinarily one enters it in Samadhi, unless one does like us to bring it down into the ordinary consciousness. Supermind also is superconscient but that is because it has not yet been attained. I remember in jail, Hiranya-garbha being equivalent to Taijas, while Prajna is prior to that; we used to call one fellow who had a strong imagination, “Hiranya-garbha,” that is to say, the man of strong dream.

Then I showed him the two references S. V. III. 2, in which Hiranya-garbha is derived from Rudra; and S. V. II. 4, in which “Kopila” is said to be Hiranya-garbha — both of these Sri Aurobindo said were not clear in their meaning of Hiranya-garbha and they were quite different in their sense from Rigveda.

About the report of military correspondent that the French thought in terms of French fortress and positional war. They did not believe the importance of tanks and aeroplanes even though they knew that the tanks decided their victory last time.

Sri Aurobindo: And Gamlin had to go because he was so much accustomed to the idea of fortress that he did not know what to do when the Germans came in through Flanders. Gamlin and Daladier both are so evidently weak that one is surprised how they were regarded as strong men. Government after Government in France was appointing Daladier as Foreign Minister, while he did nothing in fact for preparing for war and so also Chamberlain. You have only to look at their photographs at Munich conference where you can see fierce cunning and crafty Hitler while Daladier appears like one who can be broken in no time, while Chamberlain looks like a cunning fool who thinks he was getting his point, while really he was not.

Sri Aurobindo: If it is true that Germans have given a threat and if Uruguay Government shoots some of the Nazis and Germans declare war on Uruguay then Monroe Doctrine will come in full force. But I don’t suppose it will go to that extent.

About armistice discussion between French and Germany Sri Aurobindo said if they ask for capitulation of navy and air force then it will be very hard for England. The English have their air-force but do they have sufficient tanks? A big invasion of England seems unlikely and if the English can last till the end of the year then Germany may be defeated.

Russia is very foolish in putting its pressure on Turkey to keep out of war. There is bound to be a clash between Russia and Germany about the Balkans and at that time if the English are defeated there will be no chance of blockade.

On hearing about the terms of French armistice which included putting all the French resources at the disposal of Hitler Sri Aurobindo said, it is an “act of basest treachery”. When he heard about the Rumanian Government becoming Nazi he said “the whole world seems to have been taken by a wave of selfishness, cowardice and treachery.”

Disciple: We say everything happens, happens according to the Divine Will i. e. nothing happens without it. So the defeat of France happened according to the Divine Will i. e. according to Sri Aurobindo’s will!

Sri Aurobindo: “Everything” does not mean every individual act or event. You can say Sri Aurobindo’s will on another level of consciousness willed it. For instance, you can’t say that I willed to break my leg!!

People think of God as a kind of super-dictator. The Divine Will lays down general lines — but in actual play (Lila) it consents to limitations that are self-imposed. It has also to pay the price in the play of forces. Otherwise you can argue that Rama willed that Sita may be taken away by Ravana! Christ knew that he had to be crucified for the work and yet something in him wished it may be otherwise.

So, it is not all my “will”; it is the Karma of France and England also that is working.

I am almost getting sympathy and admiration for the British which I never had before. They are standing up alone against Hitler’s power without allies — just as they did in Napoleon’s time.

Sri Aurobindo: No, I did not say that. What I said what the I have not seen my will fail (so far as the major events of world were concerned) in major events until now.

Sri Aurobindo: For instance, Ireland’s freedom. I wanted Alsace Lorraine to go to France. They were not fulfilled at the time when I willed — many have been fulfilled when I no longer wanted them. For instance, I wanted to break the British Empire. Now Hitler wants to do it. But I don’t want it, as it would mean the triumph of Hitler. Wherever he has gone, he has destroyed the higher values of life.

If I want that British must not be destroyed it is not because I like the British Empire, but I see that it would push back the work tremendously. It is not mental utility but there are other utilities also.

Sri Aurobindo: The Divine Will foresees everything, lays down lines of development and allows the play of forces to work out and in that play of forces it consents to certain things. It does not will for each individual fact.

Sri Aurobindo: Every one who descends for a spiritual purpose, will have to be limited: of course, such a limitation will be self-imposed. That is to say, he will consent to the rules of the play of forces.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he says the German workers are without food and he is going to feed them. It is the Asura spreading his influence like that. He promises that he will bring peace and world-order etc.

The new order would be that the British should declare dominion status and pass some parts to Germany.

When Sri Aurobindo was told about the efficiency of air-raid shelter supplied by Anderson in England and after knowing how it worked Sri Aurobindo said, now the greater preoccupation of human mind seems to be to find out means of destroying each other and of escaping destruction. Man is said to be a rational animal but there is very little reason in these activities. It is of the same kind as ingenuity of the animal. What man is doing now is only extension of animal ingenuity. Formerly he used to destroy with swords and spears and other instruments.

Disciple: They could not do it so well as now, and you can imagine they are spending lakhs of rupees for one machine or one bomb.

Disciple referred to R. Gregg’s article in the “Harijan” in which he strongly advocates the adoption of khadi in Wardha scheme by European nations.

Sri Aurobindo: But they were destroying each other when they were using Charakha in the past?

Sri Aurobindo: There are cases of the whole population of the city killed by their primitive method.

Disciple: Instance of Baghdad where Ghangiskhan put up a tower made of one lakh of human skulls.

27th Chapter of “Life Divine”. The publishers in consultation with the Professor of English changed “founded in” into “founded on”. Sri Aurobindo said when I told him about the change,

Sri Aurobindo: I have already used that in the previous paragraph and they have suggested “on” and I have not accepted the suggestion. I have used there “in” purposely. These people think that they know English better than I do. They are habituated to use current phrases and words in their usual sense but they do not know that a good writer does not always use current phrases and words in their usual meaning.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but the Professor is an Indian. He is not an Englishman. It is these people who have learnt the language that want to use current phrases. As Richard Stephenson said, “English language is like a woman who loves you for taking liberty with her.” Once Sir D.-V. sent me one of his books and on every page I found 40 such worn out expressions, what they call cliche and all the Indians are praising the English. Perhaps an Englishman would have said, “What a horrible style!”

There was a reference to C. R’s article about the necessity of force for maintaining a state.

Disciple: Blunchli in his book called “The State” puts it down as a fundamental principle. Every state is founded on force and President Wilson in his book also maintains, a little apologetically, that all human states are founded on force.

Sri Aurobindo: Of course, so long as man is not too much cowed down or has not evolved beyond his present condition and is too high to use force, force will be indispensable.

Sri Aurobindo: No. Because there you are supposed to go beyond the human conditions, but for ordinary human

purpose the state is bound to employ force. Only there are two typesof institutions, one which employs force pure and simple and another which is based on agreement and force is employed to maintain the agreement. That is the difference between democracy and dictatorship. The weakness of the democracy is that its rule is based on majority and so there will always be a minority that is not satisfied with the conditional things. And if the minority loves the hope of becoming majority it might resort to force.

There was a letter from K. P. to Dilip in which he expressed his opinions and ideas about the present war. His points were: —

3. Each much fight the lower forces and side with the Divine in himself. After reading the letter Sri Aurobindo said:

It is quite alright that the struggle between the forces is worked out on other planes before it is projected here.

Disciple: He means like the Gita where Sri Krishna says that Kauravas were already killed.

Sri Aurobindo: I would not admit as he seems to admit that everything was fixed. Of course, the issue has been decided by the Divine vision and there can be no change in that. But nobody knows that decision of the Divine. And when there is a struggle between the forces it is always possible to change the balance of forces. True, things are decided above and happen in the physical afterwards, but not exactly in the same way. There can be a variation. Of course, there can be no variation in what is decided by the Supreme Vision.

Disciple: K. P. seems to say that Hitler is a result of tendencies which men have been harbouring in themselves. He forgets that the being behind him may also be responsible for spreading the influence.

Disciple: K. P. feels that England will not be defeated in this war because he says they have some purpose to fulfill in the world. So long as they do that they will not be defeated.

Sri Aurobindo: That is true, though certain forces have been working for the destruction of the British Empire. I myself once worked for it but it is quite possible to change the action because if the same result can be achieved in a different manner then the destruction of the British Empire is not necessary. I myself would not have minded any result to the British Empire, if its destruction did not mean victory for Hitler. But that changes the whole aspect.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, evidently. Question is what is going to be the world-order and how is it to be brought about?

Sri Aurobindo then spoke of the psychic attitude to be adopted by every one. That is useful for attaining much higher spiritual result. There have always been a small number of people who have embodied that change. But I do not know how that can change the whole world conditions. Or perhaps by psychic he means mental and vital changes. Even that I don’t know how they can come about if Hitler wins. For the present, everybody seems to be taking refuge in cowardice and trying to save his own skin and if the change desired is to come after Hitler wins then perhaps it would be after great suffering and through reactions on the part of men to that oppression, or even it may not come at all, or come after the Pralaya, whereas by changing the balance of forces the British Empire can be saved, and if it can win then the new order might take place more quietly and also the mental and vital changes necessary will take place without much disturbance and so much destruction.

Disciple: Do you mean that the Supreme Vision’s decision can be different from the decision of the subtle worlds?

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily, but between the vision of the Supreme and its realization here, there are many possible variations. In fact, if you speak of “destiny” then you must know that there are different layers of destiny. There is, for instance what the astrologers call the destiny in the physical. There can also be destiny in the vital. By bringing vital force into play the destiny in the physical can be changed. So also by bringing mental forces into play — though it is more difficult — what seems to be the vital destiny can be changed. That is why astrologers hardly prove themselves right because they look at the physical whereas there can be a variation in the play of forces of the mental, vital and physical planes. On these a certain play of forces may show as if the destiny was in favour of one or the other group of forces. And this balance can be changed.

Disciple: But if the Supreme vision is there then the new order is bound to come. Is it not?

Disciple: But at present before the Supreme has a chance there are many others who are ready with their own ideas of the new order.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, everybody seems to be busy with his own world-order and nobody knows about the decision of the Supreme.

Disciple: But how can you say nobody knows? You said that Supramental descent is bound to come.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but we have not yet become Supramental. I know it will come, but I have not fixed the date for it. It may be to-morrow. I don’t know!

Disciple: It seems that Mother said to some one that the Light will descend when there will be all darkness around and no possibility in sight for man.

Sri Aurobindo: That was not her own words. She was only repeating an ancient prophecy.

Disciple: I suppose world is sufficiently dark even now, for it is only England that is standing in the way of Hitler’s triumph.

Sri Aurobindo: Did you not see the Mother’s prayer for this year? It is quite clear; at any rate, those who received it in France perhaps know now what it meant.

There was a talk about the music of Bhismadeva. N started the topic by stating that Tagore long ago started a campaign against classical music saying that it was

dead. The reason he gave was that classical music was only a performance of mere technic and cleverness; there was no soul in it. Tagore therefore started emphasizing the importance of words and their meaning in music. He almost said that words were preferable to notes. Even Dilip strongly supported this argument of Tagore in his articles.

Sri Aurobindo: If it was only the exercise and exhibition of technique and mere skill on the part of the classical musician, then there was no real music in it.

Disciple: For musical appreciation the sound value, the rhythm, harmony etc. are quite enough. There is no need of words or meaning for the appreciation of music.

Sri Aurobindo: Like all other arts the music has its own medium — it is sound — it stands by itself. If it depended on words or on poetry then it would be poetical music but not pure music.

Disciple: The classical musicians were only performing the gymnastics of sound and Tagore said that there was need of fine and beautiful words for music.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but if it is gymnastics of sound it is not music. Music then would be only a commentary on words!

Disciple: They say that the remedy for reviving music is to give value to word and meaning.

Sri Aurobindo: The conditions are such because classical music has degenerated but it does not mean that it should not be revived; and the remedy is not to give value to words or poetry, but to restore the soul of music. If words are indispensable to the appreciation of music then how can an Englishman hear Italian music and appreciate it? — because he does not understand a word of music.

Disciple: Tagore is very particular about the tune of his own songs and nobody is allowed to make any change in the notation of his songs. That is why Dilip does not sing his song.

Disciple: By no means, because he happens to be great man in other things and has a big name therefore nobody opposes his claims in fields where he does not know anything.

Sri Aurobindo: That is because he is more of a singer than a musician. Singing is an art by itself.

Disciple: Everybody cannot appreciate or form a critical judgement about music. There has to be training and also aesthetic faculty. One can see in Bhishmadave and Biren that they have not merely technical perfection and rhythm but also they enter into the spirit of music. And there one can see that it is the notes,— the musical value of notes — that create the atmosphere specially in the case of Biren who merely by playing on string instrument succeeds in creating a fine atmosphere.

Sri Aurobindo: If words were indispensable to music then most of the European and the best of it which is without words would not be called music at all. In pure music words are absolutely not necessary. If you can’t have

pure music without word then one can also say that one cannot paint a subject which is not literary.

Disciple: Beethoven’s symphonies are only musical notations and played with the violin and piano. One of the reasons why North Indians fail, or find it difficult, to appreciate South Indian Music is because they are prevented by words; also perhaps because South Indian Music is more intellectual. When you hear B’s singing you see that he is conscious of the notes only, and the musical value of them — he is not conscious of the words and their meaning. And whatever he wants to express in his music either an emotion or a state of consciousness he does it through notes and not through words. His very gestures show that he is working with notes.

Sri Aurobindo: It is fortunate that modern European music has not suffered the same fate as modernist painting and poetry; the moderns have not bee able to spoil the European music. It is difficult to have cubism in music.

Disciple: It is difficult to throw about cubes of sound because they are sure to hurt the ear.

Disciple: Some people say that Dilip’s music is more spiritual while that of BH and other musicians is not spiritual.

Disciple: What I have found in Dilip’s music is that the atmosphere he creates is not due to his music but to something else,— perhaps to his personality or the being that is in him. I have also seen that if one goes to his music

with the idea of expecting sound values and rhythms he is likely to be disappointed.

Disciple: So far as the spiritual atmosphere is concerned he does not require a great musician to produce it. A spiritual person singing a very ordinary song can create a spiritual atmosphere.

Sri Aurobindo: That is true. Similar is the case with a poem which may be common-place but a clever elocutionist can make much out of it.

That is why I do not grant the contention of the modernist poet who says that in order to appreciate his rhythm you must hear the poem recited by him. A clever elocutionist can produce a rhythm where there is none in the original.

Disciple: Some people say that they like Dilip’s poetry when he recites it but they cannot appreciate it when they read it themselves. It is also difficult to appreciate his poetry unless one known the rhythms and new turns which he has introduced, because his rhythms are quite different from those of Tagore.

Sri Aurobindo: What I have found in Dilip’s poetry is that it is mental poetry connected with the Bengali poetry of pre-Tagorian era. Perhaps it is due to his father’s influence which was also intellectual. What I mean to say is that Tagore introduced a new element of feeling and imagination in Bengali poetry; as he is a genius his poetry is beautiful but much of what is written under Tagore’s influence is wishy-washy stuff, that is to say, it is poetry without any backbone. There is no sound experience behind it. Even in Tagore you find that his idea is diffused into seventy or eighty lines yet it does not come out clearly, though the idea is there. In pre-Tagorian poetry they had clear intellectual ideas to express and they expressed them poetically. Dilip’s poetry has two things: the subject and

the treatment. Generally the subject is an idea which he develops, an intellectual thing which he expresses in poetic form; and his technique is a departure both from Tagore and the old tradition.

Disciple: In his novel-writing also it is found that Shorot Chatterji was far superior to Tagore as a story writer.

Disciple: But he criticized Dilip’s story on the ground that there was very little action in his story. In fact he said that the story must have a story, not mere discussions. But in Tagore’s own story there is very little action. They are also what are called the intellectual novels.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I found in Dilip’s story, when I turned over the pages, that somebody or other was talking on every page.

Disciple: Or sometimes there are long letters in the novel and interminable replies.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, all sorts of things that are not native to the purpose of the novel are being put into it by the moderns. So, instead of writing a pamphlet they write a novel, instead of delivering a sermon they write a story, even they write a story for journalistic purpose. It is like Bernard Shaw writing his dramas. All his characters are meant only to represent different sides of questions which he takes up in his drama.

Disciple: Another question is “If the Divine is already there and does everything then why yoga?” Because Sri Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita that you have only to become Nimitta — instrument. So the Christian’s criticism is that the Individual is meaningless — without any justification or fulfillment. Gita is preaching pure mechanism or unconsciousness.

Sri Aurobindo: But Gita does not say that you are “compelled” to become the Nimitta. It says “Bhava” — “become!” but it does not say that you have no existence except as Nimitta.

Even if Arjuna does not become the Nimitta Sri Krishna says that he will do it in his own way.

Even when you find that the Divine has decreed the result, it is the result that is decreed but not the Nimitta, that is, anything else could have been the Nimitta.

The Individual Universal, the Transcendental are the One in different positions. “I am the Lord in each” says the Gita.

Disciple: If Divine does everything then we have to conclude that ignorance is unreal.

Sri Aurobindo: Ignorance is not unreal; it is real, that is to say, there is a Truth that corresponds to it.

Disciple: The aim of spiritual Sadhana is freedom from ego, from bondage of ego. What is to be done after that?

Sri Aurobindo: It is the first indispensable step. But there are many possibilities after that freedom. For example: —

1. He may remain confined to his own nature or to the apparent ego in nature — though free.

2. or, he may open equally to Cosmic forces and acts as Bala, Jada, Pishacha or Unmatta. [Infant-like, inert-like, devil-like, or eccentric-like.]

3. or, he may be one with the Divine and act and would be free not to act. In case he acts, he is the individual centre of the Cosmic for Divine action. He is one with the Divine yet remains a different self — yet free. Cosmic forces would be available to him for Divine action.

Letters from Kabul and from Ella Maillard; change in attitude to Gabriel; effective representation of Ella. Gandhi’s will — or political will was read (brought by Abhaya Deva) distributed to Gandhi Seva Sangh — spoken orally and taken down; after hearing the whole letter Sri Aurobindo said:

Something in him takes delight in suffering for its own sake. Even the prospect of suffering seems to please him though he puts in a lot of ethics with his justification, the fact is that something in him enjoys suffering.

2. Secondly, if he knows that to the British Government 50 Gandhis would not matter — what does he propose then to achieve politically by his fast? He even knows that the British people are not even going to consider the possibility of Ahimsa!

It is the Christian idea that has taken hold of him. Besides he seems to think that after him his theory and creed of non-violence would continue. I don’t think so. A few people would be there but anything like a wide scale influence like that of his personality does not seem possible.

I don’t object to the world-order but I object to Hitler’s world order. “Psychology” would remain unpublished so long as the war lasts because I must known whether Hitler goes up or goes down.

My contribution to the war fund was not my taking part in politics. It was in view of much wider issues which I have spoken of in my letter,— the issues of human culture and individual and national liberty; and as the English are the only race that stand up for it, I support them.

“Justice” — Englishmen won’t be acting according to justice, why should they? Which nation acts on the principles of justice? Why should we expect them to fulfill a standard which we ourselves can’t satisfy.

Indian problem has been very badly bungled by Jinnah, and Congress and Mahasabha. They have not been able to play their cards well. That is why they are losing the game.

What is justice after all? To the Socialist denial of all property, liquidation of capitalism is justice. To the capitalist something else is justice.

Congress is asking for freedom of expression but it does not give its own members freedom to express their ideas, if they are against their official policy.

Two ways of securing freedoms by force, by revolution — that cannot succeed so long as we have Jinnahs etc. The only other course is compromise. There you have to give and take,— know your opponent. Generally, the English do not want to go to the extreme or to be continuously repressing. After a time they like to come to a compromise. Generally they arrange the bargain in such a way that they gain in the compromise. They want to be respected. They don’t like to be called bad.

Fast and Satyagraha changing the heart of the opponent is absurd. What it can do is to exert pressure and secure some concession.

But it can’t succeed if it challenges the very existence of the other force. For instance, Gandhi succeeded in settling the labour question because the capitalists did not want to earn public obloquy. So they gave concession to his demands. But suppose instead of some demands of amelioration he had asked them to hand over the mills to the workers then he would not have succeeded.

All the talk of change of heart is absurd. If it changes anything, it may change only the mind — not the heart. The man may not like to face the consequences and so would give in without changing the heart.

The English have also some constitutional mind. So once they give, they don’t go back upon their word. They don’t want anyone else to walk into India when they walk out of it. They are afraid of that happening if they leave India now. It would certainly mean civil war and any other power can walk into India. They have proclaimed that they would grant Dominion Status which amounts to Independence except one or two matters like defense and foreign affairs.

They don’t care for world opinion or India because the opinion they consider important is American opinion. But as all are afraid of Hitler they won’t at present speak against England for her Indian Policy. And also they are not quite wrong when they say that the Indians must settle their own differences. The Lucknow pact has become a great political blunder. The Mahommedans,— they want to rule India.

If Gandhi undertakes his fast for self purification or for spiritual end it is something, but how can he gain political power by that?

It is the British Government that gives way to such pressure. Against Germany, Japan, Russia or even France that has no chance. Virawala a match for Gandhi. Vallabhbhai’s life attempted after Amreli and Rajkot.

Jail going is useful because it can help a nation in solidifying itself and in organizing itself. But if the programme is carried out ultimately, the ruling power, if it is oppressive, can be thrown out by the organization etc.

Kasturbhai’s Arvind Mills of Ahmedabad was using Sri Aurobindo’s picture on their products, without any permission and without paying any consideration. One of the pictures was shown to Sri Aurobindo and it was represented to him that legal action could be taken against the Mills. On seeing the picture Sri Aurobindo said:

Sri Aurobindo: The other one made me look like a criminal. This one makes me look like an imbecile — not only the eyes but the mouth; — can one do these things?

Sri Aurobindo: On quietude, openness and wideness. One can’t receive, if one is disturbed and also what he receives can’t be effective without quietude. Quietude is of the Mind, the Vital and the Physical. The most difficult is of the Inconscient. One can develop openness by Will and instil quietude also by throwing away all disturbance by aspiration, will, effort, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: Inconscient, what is inconscient? There is nothing below the Inconscient. It is from the Inconscient that Matter takes form. Everything has its basis in the Inconscient. As the work is going on in the Inconscient the difficulties from there arise,— various diseases, etc.

It is the stuff of all material world. Inconscient has its own power. It has concrete thoughts and ideas of its ignorance and in order to combat them, one has to bring down concrete higher Force.

Disciple: What about “In tune with the Infinite” in which he says: “I am infinite power. It is pouring and pouring in me.”

Sri Aurobindo: It is one way of opening the consciousness to the Force. I don’t know if it can be successful all throughout.

Disciple: You said to D that his keeping the attitude that “I am the child of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo — nothing can oppose me” was quite proper.

Sri Aurobindo: That is the central faith which one is required to have in this Yoga. If one can make that faith living in all parts of the being then it would be quite alright. But the body says, “I have pain — I am suffering.” It has that power of Ignorant idea from the Inconscient. After completing the work in the Inconscient, the higher ranges of the Supramental consciousness would be brought down.

Disciple: There is a proposal for introducing a course in Indian Philosophy as a subject in the University.

Sri Aurobindo: There is no objection to their doing that but it should not be compulsory. It should not be called a course in Metaphysics and Theology. Life Divine is not a Theology! Further, it should be kept optional. Religious instructions should not be made compulsory. It does not necessarily develop spiritually; many people come to spiritual life through atheism. Religious instruction makes man narrow, sectarian, etc. The objection to this scheme is that it is academic. It would lose all its like and become dry.

Sri Aurobindo had seen a volume of Cezanne and one of the painters of the 20th Century representing the most modern trends of artistic movement in France.

Cezanne had found “remarkable” models for his portraits. All of them were very fine and showed power.

He didn’t know drawing and so some of his things were imperfect. Colour is everything. (I showed him the small volume on Cezanne). He liked it better because of the colour plates.

He found three things in modern art — 1. Ugliness, 2. Vulgarity, or what might be called coarseness, 3. Absurdity.

In their nude studies it is very low sexuality which they bring out. They all call it “Life” — but it is not life. Even in the most ugly corner there is something fine and beautiful that comes and saves it. It shows France has gone down.

To create form by colour only,— that is a matter of technique and one can accept it.

It started with Cezanne — but even there the beginning is already there in his study of the nude. There is too much of a genius to be positively ugly.

When they go further even in the application of their theories they become absurd.

There is no objection to suppressing the unessentials in a work of art — all great artists do it. To retain the “essentials only” — Fauvism.

Life of Blake with many of his etchings was shown to Sri Aurobindo. He had not liked them very much when a few of them were shown to him some days back. During daytime when he saw them he said that they were merely “dramatic” and “imaginative” rather than “creation of art.” He remarked that English art in general was more a result of “mental imagination and less satisfying as a work of true art.” The “Death of a white horse” looks like a violent angry old man, and the horse is also wild and angry. “I can’t say I’m impressed.” If you can compare his work with the etchings of Rembrandt, you will see the difference between true artistic creation and imaginative work.

I related Lawrence Binyon’s remarks in the preface that these works make an impression on the mind and don’t so much appeal to the aesthetic senses and so you are disappointed when you see them again.

“I liked some of his paintings” he said “especially his representation called «the murder.» It is a great work. You see that it represents murder. That is art.”

In his poetry, too, I was rather disappointed, except “Book of Thel” (journey to Thel) and some of his lyrics — his poetry also is not satisfying. It is like his etchings “You find it rhetorical” — Durer also was a great etcher. The claim was that he used to paint or etch these things under inspiration.

“There is a realm of the stretch of vital romantic from which you can get these things. That period comes in Yoga also. But these things are not deep and profound.”

The symbolism which he claims to have evolved for the complete explanation and interpretation of Christianity looked very elaborate to me.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, all that may be true but it is not poetry. Middleton Murray and some others try to make so much of his poetry. It is the same you find people trying to indicate that the names of certain countries stand for certain activity and certain contribution, and that even individual names (of Gods).

Disciple: Does the feminine aspect (of the Divine) correspond to love, Devotion and surrender?

Disciple: There is no reason to associate these with the feminine aspect because he associates these with it.

Disciple: Receptivity includes these things; it is only a way of representing the inner life of the woman.

Sri Aurobindo: Because the female is passive, dependent, (passively active) while the male is active, strong and self-reliant.

Disciple: The Vaishnavas look upon all souls as Gopis and so it seems that the feminine aspect in all corresponds to

the element of love, devotion, etc. because they take this path.

Disciple: It cannot be said that the male aspect is without love, devotion and surrender.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is so. Only, it is of a different nature. Man, for instance, may be devoted to a woman but that is not the same thing as a woman’s devotion to man. And the Vaishnava outlook is not the whole of the feminine aspect. There are other aspects of the woman. Love is not the only aspect of the woman.

Disciple: But Krishna Prem says that both these should be equal in all men, is it true?

Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by true? If you mean “true” in fact then you can say it is not true. He says “it should be” but “should be” is not “what is.”

Disciple: Krishna Prem also says that Grace and Tapasya are complimentary. No one of them is to be stressed. Girish Ghosh used to say to Ramkrishna that he left everything for Ramkrishna to do (for him); and it seems he was very much changed.

Disciple: What I heard is that Girish found at the end that he had not been able to give his burden over to Ramkrishna.

Disciple: I suppose so, or he found at the end that somehow or other he had not left the whole thing to Ramkrishna.

Disciple: That means, if one has that living faith he can do without Tapasya. C also says that he does not believe in Tapasya. He believes in Grace.

Disciple: I do not mean that one should indulge in lower nature while depending or believing in Grace. But otherwise I don’t believe in Tapasya.

Disciple: Yes, but if we want something then we have to make some effort or straining for that thing. Some effort is inevitable.

Disciple: It has the sense of effort. For example, the mind is wandering about: then one has to make an effort to concentrate it. This is difficult.

Sri Aurobindo: That Tapas means something difficult is the popular idea. It means most often sitting on nails, standing on the head etc. But that is not correct. Tapas can be for something one likes or wants. You gather the energy for the object.

Disciple: When one sits in meditation the mind is wandering about and one has to gather it. This is difficult.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but something in you wants to do it. You want it, is it not?

Disciple: It is the gathering of force of consciousness for a particular purpose.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, you gather up all the energy and put it on a particular point.

Sri Aurobindo: If you want to achieve the object some effort will be necessary for achieving it.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but that requires concentration of energy. All effort is not unpleasant. For instance, a man who plays cricket hasto concentrate on the ball, on the bat, wicket, fielding etc.

Sri Aurobindo: It is said in the Upanishads that God created the world by Tapas. It was not that he found it difficult to create the world, but he had to make the effort.

Disciple: There is an instance given of concentration as when a lady goes about doing all sorts of works with a pitcher on her head. All the time her attention is concentrated on the pitcher.

In the case of the Gopis it was not that they had not to make an effort to remember Krishna. They spontaneously fell in love with him and some thing in them was on fire. So when something in the being is touched like that, then concentration does not require effort or labour.

One may concentrate for one thing and quite a different result may come — one may go to quite another line.

Sri Aurobindo: In my own case, Lele wanted me to get devotion and love and hear inner voices. Instead I got into the Silent Brahman Consciousness.

Disciple: I find in my case that with little effort on my part many things have dropped.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is because you, or something in you, wanted to drop these things.

Sri Aurobindo: It may be so. It is not a question of correspondence: with little effort something in you wants to drop it sincerely and then the Grace finds it easy to act. But all the same the effort is a contributory element. There are cases in which one goes on making effort and yet no result comes and even the condition becomes worse. While suddenly you find when you have given up the effort, that the thing is done. It may be that the effort was keeping up the resistance and when you give up the effort the resistance says “This fellow has given up effort, so it is no use persisting.”

Sri Aurobindo: That is so because you do not know what the person really is — you see only the outside.

Sri Aurobindo: No — she was very nice so long as you did what she liked. But otherwise she was a person least fitted for Sadhana. The family has a touch of madness. She was hysterical and also there was dissatisfied sex. She looked very nice and people generally think it is a sign of great advance when a man stops speaking to persons or if he retires like N. B. and N. and even S. These are persons with small spiritual capacity. B. — tyes but B. had a great capacity. It was his inordinate ego that came in his way.

Disciple: Mother is preparing 12 persons — apostles like Christ? — and then other 12 will be taken up etc.

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know it,— unless you believe that I hold it as a State secret.

S. Iyengar’s book on English poetry. His judgements are not always sound and his quotations though they seem striking at first they don’t stand a second reading. So that they can’t be taken as the best. For example, he speaks of Oscar Wilde — but he has not referred to the “Ballad of the Reading Goal” which is one of the best things written in English. Also his estimate of Blunden’s descriptions of nature — photographic and true to Nature perhaps — but it is very doubtful if they will survive.

“Shakespeare you can go back to for the hundredth time. That is the test. Only T. S. Elliot will live — but that as a minor poet only. The moderners all have got diction but it has no value without Rhythm. They have no Rhythm.”

Sri Aurobindo: Such men will find great difficulties after the war because the peace seems much more difficult — war is difficult enough.

In Russia before the war there were 18 million in prison — 1/10th of the population!!

General Tokezyswaki had been to Russia — because he was a Socialist. What he saw disillusioned him. He was even imprisoned in Russia.

The spy system in Russia is very extensive. Each man who is somebody is watched by three men.

American politicians want to retain their hold over North Africa if they can — to ensure payment of their money. They would even like to have Persia and Iraque.

Spiritual cure — method described — Blue ray — directed to the patient — Washes his own hands. Astral body seen near the patient.

Spirit communication — Desire to continue the family life of Earth. There are such spirits who like a reproduction of the life on Earth.

Letter from Dilip — with Krishnaprem’s. Whether every time a Sadhaka makes personal effort can it be said that it is to satisfy the Ego.

Sri Aurobindo: No, it can be to subordinate the Ego to the Divine. If it is to seek power or to satisfy some other impulse then personal effort may have egoistic origin.

Disciple: Could one make the surrender to a Guru whose outer nature is imperfect?

Sri Aurobindo: It has nothing to do with any human standards — moral or mental. Most often it is the Ego that says that “this fellow has got this defect, I won’t surrender to him.”

Disciple: But the very act of accepting some one as Guru requires some perception or feeling or experience of the Divine in the person?

Sri Aurobindo: Not necessarily. It may be only a belief in the Divinity of the Guru.

That way it can be argued that God is imperfect because the exterior working in this world is full of imperfections, ignorance, suffering, etc. All these things do not count. The question is whether the Divinity in the Guru can awaken the Divine in the disciple.

Vivekananda was conscious of Ramkrishna’s shortcomings and his mind was very agnostic. So it took him years and he was fighting with himself before he accepted Ramkrishna.

Sri Aurobindo: Why does Siddhartha want to argue about his faith? How can he prove his faith by arguments? He must know that it can’t be done.

And now-a-days it is well-known that one argues in favour of what one likes. It is not for arriving at the Truth. One can’t arrive at the Truth by arguing.

He can find plenty of proof of people whose faith has succeeded where all outer reason was against them. There are many such things in history.

If England had only thought and depended on reason then she should have made peace with Hitler. She had no chance against Germany. But in spite of that she had faith that she could win and she is beginning to win.

It was after the Dunkirk that I openly came out with my declaration and gave the contribution openly. If I had believed in appearances I should not have. It is in spite of opposite appearances that you have to act on faith. I had fixed the 15th August and 15th September as the dates on which Germany would have defeat and both the days they go the defeat (August I believe over London and September — the “invasion idea” and “preparation”)

2. I wanted De Gaulle to become the chief of the Free French armies in North Africa. There were many obstacles and the Americans came in with their pro-Vichy attitude. But I went on pressing and ultimately it has succeeded.

3. Also about the Tunisian campaign. There was lot of swaying to and fro. But I persisted — First time when the Allies attached they were only 30 thousand against 3 lakhs Italians. If Wavell had gone to Tripoli at that time he would have succeeded. But they went to help Greece and naturally they had to retreat. But I went on and at last they took Tunisia.

If you depend upon reason then you can’t know what is Truth. Germany fought Russia on her reason and won and now Russia is fighting Germany on her reasoning and is winning. It is apparent it is not reason which is giving anyone the success. There is, or must be, something behind that decides these things.

Our people cannot understand why one who has the Divine consciousness or Brahmic consciousness should take

up sides in a fight. That is alright if you want to remain in theStatic Brahman. Then you can look upon the whole thing as Maya and it may not exist for you.

But I believe in Brahman siding against Brahman — that the Brahman, I think, has been always doing.

The distinction between the Ishwar consciousness and Brahmic consciousness is not clear to many people, and also some of the Monists consider Ishwar to be a lower status than Brahman because it is dissolved in the Pralaya.

But Krishna took side openly in Maha Bharata and Rama also. Rama they do not consider an Avatar — He was weeping because he was not self-conscious — why! An Avatar cannot weep!!

Disciple: There are some people who even try to maintain that you knew fully that your message to the Congress would fail and yet you sent it.

Disciple: But suppose you have known that it would certainly fail — then in that case you might have spared the trouble of going and coming to Duraiswamy.

Sri Aurobindo: No, even if I had known for a certainty that it would fail still it had to be done — It is a question of play of forces and the important thing is that the other force should not be there.

We cannot explain these things to people — this play of forces — who ask for rational explanation because it is so irrational.

1. C. Rajagopalachari in the Puja issue of the “Amrit Bazar” has pleaded for the reconstruction and revival of the Cripp’s proposal!!

Sri Aurobindo found it “late” but C. R. had got back his clarity of mind. As to the actual revival when Wavell comes the difficulties are 1. I. C. S. and Congress on two sides and 2. Jhinna on the third.

2. Anil Baran’s article about Bengal flood situation created a great stir in the Ashram. Sri Aurobindo’s plea was for organization by the people. Mere Government regulation or work would not do. The ministry is people’s and so their dishonesty, want of public spirit and want of tradition of honest public work is our fault.

Even if the people had rioted at some places, Government would be compelled to act, etc.

3. Jivatman descends here — not geographically. It is a way of saying that “it takes up the consciousness” and “organizes the nature” etc.

Who gets Nirvana or who passes away into the Absolute? “The Jivatman. It is the Jivatman.”

Article by K. C. Vardachari. Answer to Malkani. By “Chit” in Ramanuja is it meant the surface consciousness?

The Narayan is indissolubly connected with manifestation. You can’t know him even if he has an existence independent of his manifestation.

Sri Aurobindo: I would agree with him by saying that the Absolute is not knowable by the mind. But it is knowable to itself. It has self-illumination (“swayam — Prakasha”).

4. On the 3rd October Sri Aurobindo said: It seems in this war the human element is in the background — the whole thing is so much dominated by the machine. It may be illusion. But the men of the past looked so much higher in comparison with the leaders of the present crisis. Even look at the generals. Napoleon and his generals you find the human character there dominating. The leaders do not come off so high. Whether the machine can be used to help men to good? It can help to make life more comfortable, it can add to the convenience etc. but how can it aid men in spiritual or inner progress?

11/12.1920	09.08.1923	01.01.1924	03.08.1924
11/12.1920	28.09.1923	03.01.1924 (02)	04.08.1924
09.04.1923	23.12.1923	10.01.1924	17.08.1924
11.04.1923	27.12.1923	16.01.1924	05.01.1925
28.04.1923	03.01.1924	09.02.1924	12.07.1925
08.08.1923			21.09.1925

12.09.1923	22.06.1926	06.04.1943	15.09.1925
09.02.1924	15.01.1939	08.04.1943	04.10.1925
24.04.1924	16.05.1940	05.05.1943	07.10.1925
12.06.1924	18.01.1939	11.05.1943	09.10.1925
23.08.1925	06.02.1939	20.08.1943	12.10.1925
04.12.1925	27.02.1939	20.11.1943	21.10.1925
14.04.1926	27.02.1939	25.09.1923	02.11.1925
22.05.1926	20.12.1939	10.10.1923	26.12.1925
19.03.1926	26.08.1940	20.11.1923	22.02.1926
11.06.1926	04.09.1940	08.01.1924	23.03.1926
31.08.1926	14.12.1940	10.01.1924	21.08.1926
25.12.1939	10.03.1943	10.07.1924	27.01.1939
26.12.1939	25.03.1943	25.11.1924	1942
17.09.1940	27.03.1943	21.01.1925

11.11.1923	11.10.1925	20.12.1938	25.12.1939
05.07.1924	14.10.1925	21.12.1938	19.07.1943
19.09.1926	05.12.1925	25.12.1938	20.03.1943
20.09.1925	30.01.1926	30.12.1938
26.09.1925	04.02.1926	10.01.1939

26.01.1926	22.06.1924	11.01.1939
28.01.1926	31.12.1938	12.05.1940
31.03.1926	24.01.1939	14.01.1941

22.05.1925	09.01.1939	18.01.1940	27.01.1940
12.10.1926	06.01.1940	18.01.1940	26.09.1943
12.12.1938	07.01.1940	19.01.1940	28.09.1943
03.01.1939	17.01.1940	19.01.1940	01.1939

07.03.1924	31.05.1924	03.07.1924	23.10.1925
08.03.1924	07.06.1924	04.07.1924	07.04.1926
11.03.1924	17.06.1924	15.07.1924	29.06.1926
14.03.1924	19.06.1924	02.08.1924	04.08.1926
08.04.1924	22.06.1924 (02)	02.08.1924 (02)	08.09.1926
09.04.1924	30.06.1924	12.09.1924

28.03.1923	23.07.1923	10.05.1924	20.05.1924
18.04.1923	23.07.1923 (02)	17.05.1924	02.06.1924

09.04.1923 (02)	26.02.1924	18.08.1926	26.09.1926
13.04.1923	16.10.1925	06.09.1926	02.10.1926
29.05.1923	02.03.1926	09.09.1926
11.11.1923 (02)	09.04.1926	10.09.1926
31.01.1924	18.05.1926	20.09.1926

26.03.1924	06.10.1925	18.06.1926	10.08.1926
24.04.1924 (02)	04.06.1926	28.06.1926	03.09.1926
21.09.1925 (02)	08.06.1926	30.07.1926	04.09.1926

10.07.1923	19.10.1925	02.07.1926	14.08.1926
01.06.1924	04-05.1926	09.07.1926	28.09.1926
04.08.1924 (02)	29.05.1926	10.07.1926	03.10.1926
30.08.1925	22.06.1926 (02)	06.08.1926
18.10.1925	25.06.1926	13.08.1926

30.04.1923	05.04.1924	12.03.1926
30.05.1923	06.03.1926	06.05.1926

04.04.1924	01.06.1926	17.08.1926	09.11.1926
05.1924	15.06.1926	22.08.1926
09.12.1925	26.06.1926	24.08.1926
12.01.1926	13.07.1926	06.11.1926

15.08.1923	15.08.1924	15.08.1925	15.08.1926
15.08.1923 (02)	15.08.1924 (02)	15.08.1925 (02)

06.10.1925 (02)	10.10.1925	05.11.1925
07.10.1925 (02)	24.10.1925	08.08.1926

10.12.1938	13.01.1939	06.05.1939	23.06.1940
11.12.1938	14.01.1939	16.05.1939	25.06.1940
13.12.1938	15.01.1939 (02)	20-27.05.1939	27.06.1940
14.12.1938	16.01.1939	19-20.11.1939	21.07.1940
15.12.1938	17.01.1939	21.11.1939	03.08.1940
18.12.1938	19.01.1939	14.12.1939	18.08.1940
22.12.1938	20.01.1939	15.12.1939	15.09.1940
23.12.1938	21.01.1939	30.12.1939	28.11.1940
26.12.1938	22.01.1939	04.01.1940	29.11.1940
27.12.1938	23.01.1939	05.01.1940	31.12.1940
28.12.1938	24.01.1939 (03)	08.01.1940	04.01.1941
29.12.1938	26.01.1939	10.01.1940	14.01.1941 (02)
01.01.1939	28.01.1939	23.02.1940	24.01.1941
02.01.1939	29.01.1939	03.1940	1941 or 1942
03.01.1939 (02)	03.02.1939	25.04.1940	12.03.1943
04.01.1939	05.02.1939	20.05.1940	26.03.1943
05.01.1939	07.02.1939	22.05.1940	16.04.1943
06.01.1939	09.02.1939	23.05.1940	17.04.1943
07.01.1939	21.02.1939	15.06.1940	18.04.1943
08.01.1939	24.02.1939	17-18.06.1940	19.04.1943
10.01.1939 (02)	25.02.1939	16.06.1940	07.08.1943
12.01.1939	12.03.1939	22.06.1940	04.10.1943